Gillard a failure but we must not forget how bad Rudd was

IT'S A-Day in Canberra. Not A for Australia, but A for Assassination.

While it may seem as if the nation has suffered Julia Gillard's atonal whine for a lot longer than a year, it is just 365 long days since she prematurely ended Kevin Rudd's prime ministership. At the time, few Australians believed anyone could be worse than Rudd. How wrong they proved to be. In all respects and by every measure imaginable, the Gillard government is worse. Twelve months ago, Gillard said she and her Labor Party supporters felt they had to act because the Rudd government "had lost its way". The Gillard government has certainly not found it. Gillard has shown she has even less character than Rudd, lying to the electorate about her plan to introduce a carbon dioxide tax, lying about her East Timor solution for illegal people smuggler clients, lying about the mining tax. She has shown a chronic inability to produce and execute (no pun intended) meaningful policy - look no further than the disastrous total closure of Australia's live cattle export trade with Indonesia because of a lobby group's PR campaign against a handful of abattoirs. That she still commands any public support at all is more a tribute to the power of the communes which control the taxpayer-funded ABC and the struggling Fairfax press than any earned respect. Even the Labor Party's own polling finds that Gillard has failed to establish any positive relationship with the Australian people. I admit, I thought she would do better. A year ago Gillard had shown herself to be a much warmer personality than her predecessor but now the public thinks Rudd was dealt with harshly by his own party. This view is supported by his media sycophants and denies the reality that over the past 12 months as Foreign Minister, Rudd has shown himself to be as big a failure in the foreign arena as he was when also in charge of domestic affairs. Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg summed up the pair's failures with a quote from Winston Churchill during a notable speech to parliament: "Their insatiable lust for power is only equalled by their incurable incompetence in exercising it."He reminded his listeners of the high hopes that had once been held for Rudd: "a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat with postings to Beijing and Stockholm; a man who hounded Laurie Brereton in the shadow foreign affairs portfolio before deposing him with a knife as sharp as the one used by Wayne Swan." Frydenberg, who now holds the seat of Kooyong, recalled the litany of foreign affairs failures "country by country and issue by issue". Japan, bypassed by Rudd on his first foreign trip as Prime Minister. Rudd's promise to haul Japan before the International Court of Justice on whaling, just as the Japanese foreign minister was landing in Australia. He mentioned Rudd's lecture to the Chinese on human rights. Rudd presided over the refugee stand-off on the Oceanic Viking and has been absent during the live cattle export fiasco, as he was for Gillard's premature announcement of her abortive plan to warehouse illegal people smuggler clients in East Timor.Even closer to home Rudd, as Foreign Minister, has still to visit the South Pacific, the region in which Australia used to exert the greatest influence. "We are the largest donor in the South Pacific. Could you imagine a CEO not going to visit the countries or the places where his money is being spent?" Frydenberg asked. "With Fiji, we have been excluded from regional forums which even piddling European nations like Luxembourg have been invited to. With Papua New Guinea, when it came to Manus Island, we were nowhere to be seen; we do not have a foreign minister who is willing to visit. With India, we have failed to sell uranium to them despite urging our partners in the Nuclear Suppliers Group - another 44 countries - to do so."Rudd's own prime ministerial initiative for a new Asian-Pacific community body has sunk without trace. Rudd's ego-driven Security Council bid, Frydenberg noted, has diverted key resources from our 90-odd missions overseas, and even dragged the Governor-General on a very unusual, very expensive seven-nation tour of Africa. Australia has nothing to show for Rudd's appointment except expensive frequent flyer miles. Yet this dud is more popular than Gillard. This must surely demonstrate the true level of public popularity held for both losers - zero.