Kev a perfect captain for this ship of fools

IN hindsight, Kevin Rudd would have made the perfect gift to the UN, the global monument to slothful bureaucracy, political correctness and special interests.

IN hindsight, Kevin Rudd would have made the perfect gift to the UN, the global monument to slothful bureaucracy, political correctness and special interests.

Who better than the former PM, reviled in a bipartisan manner by Australians from across the political spectrum, to preside over this morass of waste and hatred.

 I joke.

 The UN needs a ­reformer, not a self-proclaimed policy wonk like Rudd who displayed an appalling compulsion to inject himself into every decision taken during his two failed terms in office.

 With rare exceptions, the UN has been since its ­inception the dumping ground for failed politicians who nations could no longer abide.

 The visionaries who felt that such an international body would solve the world’s problems are long gone but their dream for an all-encompassing universal body moves sluggishly forward.

 This past week at Turtle Bay, not far from where I have been staying in Manhattan, the UN came to a decision of sorts on a draft agreement on refugees and migrants.

 As The New York Times noted, “after days of intense negotiations over an international agreement, the nations of the world on Tuesday adopted a draft that contained virtually no concrete commitments to make their journeys better or safer.

 Nor does it have any force of law.

” In short, the UN again agreed on a meaningless draft that pleased everyone — not for what it contained but for what it didn’t cover.

 It is ridiculous to even contemplate the UN ever agreeing to committing to something substantive, whether it be on refugees or migrants, or anything else which so obviously involves the interests of so many of its member states.

 ?Rudd would have excelled in adding to this chaos and he would have revelled in the precious pomposity of the organisation.

 A former UN emp-loyee appointed to investigate solutions to one of the world’s perpetual trouble spots told me he was asked to submit a list of experts on the area whom he wished to employ to the UN oversight committee before he put them on the payroll.

 The experts were rejected in favour of a group of UN hacks with no experience in the area but who met the politically correct guidelines: they were either women, or members of minority groups, or both, and he had no choice but to agree to their selection.

 Hamstrung, he had some success but nowhere near what he might have achieved if the specialists he had nominated had been permitted to be involved.

 The UN is not about the ­solution, it’s about the process — another feature Rudd would have relished given his record of botching process during his prime ministerships.

 Though the UN indulges ­itself in making self-important pronouncements that have no weight, there is an army of ­activist organisations and ­forums that do take it seriously and rush to ensure that nat-ional laws shadow the UN’s unenforceable direction.

 Across Australia, two-bit local councils have hastened to endorse UN guidelines on all manner of environmental pos-itions.

 As its predecessors did, the Turnbull government proudly announces that it will endorse UN climate strategies, particularly on emission levels, as untested and nonsensical as they are.

 Those of Rudd’s small band of supporters who shrilly proclaimed his fitness for the UN Secretary-General should be put under the microscope.

 What did they stand to gain by having Rudd at the helm of this wallowing shipwreck? Australians should ask their local MPs why Australia even regards the UN as worthy of support? Why do we so readily shovel money into the clutching paws of this monolithic monster? Instead of tugging the national forelock before the UN, Australians should have a healthy disrespect for such a failed body.

 Rarely are its policies in line with those we champion.

 It is opposed to free speech, except when it comes from the sever-ely offended classes; it sucks up to demagogues and dictators, and their votes usually cancel out the votes of the rational nations.

 These are points a brave leader might have made, certainly not Malcolm Turnbull, however.

 Turnbull seems as subservient to the mantra of multilateralism as the leaders of socialist republics elsewhere.

 He was correct in pointing out that Rudd didn’t cut the mustard as PM and couldn’t be expected to run the UN with his astounding lack of skills, but unfortunately his own inability to act judiciously and thoughtfully undermined the decision he finally had Cabinet make for him.

 Foreign Minister Julie Bishop displayed a particular lack of courage in even suggesting that Rudd’s name could go forward when his track record of disaster ­remains so fresh, and the lickspittles of her department who proclaimed that Rudd would be a perfect choice for the job should be shown the door.

 If Australian foreign policy is guided by the views of such people, they are clearly the wrong people in the wrong ­positions and their judgment on all other, more serious matters, must be suspect.

 An individual’s fitness for a position should be the principal criterion when considering any appointment, not their political position or their gender or their minority status or whatever repellent and discriminatory rule may be applied.

 It was not, as Anthony ­Albanese claimed, “petty, vindictive and small” to block Rudd from the secretary-generalship contest and it certainly didn’t “diminish our nation”.

 If anything, it demonstrated that Australia was not prepared to foist yet another no-hoper onto the internat-ional champagne circuit.

 As for the indigenous leaders who gave their support to Rudd, on the basis that “the man who delivered the apol-ogy is a man suitable for the post of secretary-general of the UN”, thanks for nothing.

 The apology may have been a tear-jerker at the time but as the years pass by we are relentlessly reminded of its abject hollowness.

 Rudd now says he “never had the faintest interest in engaging in a quixotic venture”, when he has done nothing but for the past two years.

 Not having an Australian in the UN job is no big loss.

 It just didn’t need another loser.