Rudd caught in a devious rat trap of his own design

INVITATIONS to meet Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinpeng in Canberra this weekend were telephoned just yesterday to leading Australian business figures with China-related interests.

Their absurdly late delivery was yet further proof of the chaos which invariably reigns in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's personal office. Some recipients were wondering how Rudd would greet his guest in light of his reported description of the Chinese leaders in a recent widely-publicised article as "ratf ... . . g Chinese", during the disastrous Copenhagen climate change summit. On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said he did not believe the disparaging remarks attributed to Rudd by Fairfax writer David Marr would damage relations between Australia and China. But later that evening, Rudd delivered a bizarre explanation of his "ratf ... . . g" remarks to attendees at the Canberra press gallery's annual gala ball. His speech - reported by several outlets yesterday - left attendees staggering. Let me quote from an edited transcript of Rudd's comments, which charitable readers may consider to be an attempt at humour: "I can deal with all creatures great and small, ugly and less so: carpet snakes, black snakes, brown snakes, big snakes, small snakes, spiders, cockroaches, the rest, leeches, but there's one thing I cannot stand. "It's rats. They give me the positive heebie jeebies. Anyone here like rats? I rest my case. "I've been diagnosed as musophobic [fearful of mice and rats"> which in extreme cases like mine has some severe symptoms. "These symptoms are as follows: prolixity, insomnia and profanity. That's what musophobia gives you. "So there I was when an off-the-record briefing session there in Copenhagen, which is a small town in Denmark - a briefing session that had been marred from the outset - and the brother of all rats comes gallivanting across the room. "At first I thought, even though it was in Denmark, it could have been a rogue possum but that was wrong, no such luck, it was only a big brown rat. I'm familiar with the species. "It was called raticus norvegicus, the famous Norwegian rat. "And then his mate joined in and it was December, with the possibility of an early spring was looming in that part of Scandinavia and it was a frisky time, therefore, for raticus norvegicus, a time of fun, frivolity and frolicking, in a non-family values sort of way. "So, I was in the middle of briefing some esteemed members of the Fourth Estate on the complexities of the Copenhagen summit, when a pair of romantic rodents decided to go for it, so to speak. "Distracted by the spectacle, I made an observation mid-sentence, profane as it was, thanks to the crippling, crippling, symptoms of musophobia but it was an observation nonetheless in which I drew upon long-standing Anglo-Saxon roots to describe the act. "The rats, indeed, were at it, so to speak, and hence the explanation for why did I use that expression this evening. "I saw raticus norvegicus engaged in illicit activity on the ground and that interrupted my normal briefing on China's posture on climate change." Speaking at such rambling length of his association with rattus norvegicus, also called the brown rat or sewer rat, and his use of the obscene colloquialism in connection with the Chinese is beyond comprehension. This is the man who presented himself as the greatest diplomat the Australian nation has ever produced. Yet he acts like Sir Les Patterson, Barry Humphries' great caricature of a foul-mouthed, alcoholic food-smeared ambassador. Rudd's rat-fixated clarification left most guests wondering why on earth he was breathing new life into comments which would have been best left in the gutter, or at least, undignified by further interpretation. Xi, who is tipped to succeed President Hu Jintao in the next few years, is squeezing in a three-day visit to Australia between stops in Bangladesh, Laos and New Zealand. Among those who have been invited to meet him in Canberra are a number of leaders of Australian mining companies. These executives can justly claim to have been "ratf ... . d" by the Rudd Government's proposed super retrospective tax on their industry. The Chinese, now Australia's largest trading partners, have let it be known they harbour significant disquiet about Rudd's erratic leadership of the nation. Recent polls taken across Australia would indicate they are not alone in their view that he may have shaken a sauce bottle or two too many, fairly or unfairly. Even Rudd's brother, Greg Rudd, came out on Saturday in The Weekend Australian to admit that it was difficult to know whether his politician brother had made the world a better place because: "It's hard to see clearly through the smoky haze of self-lit spot fires of distraction." He's not kidding. It is become apparent that the great big new retrospective tax on mining dumped on the nation on May 2 under cover of the Henry Tax Review was put together without consultation by Rudd and Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, a team that is by any global comparison, incompetent and amateurish. As the next leader of the world's emerging superpower, Xi is no amateur and nor are the Australian business figures who last night were still attempting to rearrange their commitments to meet him. But Xi knows that his potty-mouthed political host is still on trainer wheels when it comes to the task of running a medium-sized nation and can only hope that a more mature and experienced team is soon elected to restore some economic stability.