Rudd of many faces

OPPOSITION Leader Kevin Rudd will strut his stuff during tonight's big debate but exactly which Rudd will be appearing before the nation?

Will we see Rudd-the-candidate presented by Hawker Britten, Labor's spin doctor of choice, or will we see Rudd-the-recycled, parroting lines first trotted out by veteran US political consultant Bob Shrum 30 years ago? Or will we be dazzled by Rudd-the-glib, the Mandarin-speaking former junior diplomat and axe-wielding Queensland Labor apparatchik? Hawker Britten is a creation of former staffers from former NSW premier Bob Carr's office. It has taken former senator Graham Richardson's whatever-it-takes politics to new heights, even advising company James Hardie on the best face to put on its decision to shed its asbestos liabilities, while helping Labor candidates muscle up for the fight against the Coalition. As former ACTU boss Greg Combet, the ALP federal executive's selection for the NSW seat currently occupied by the very unhappy Kelly Hoare (the victim of a vicious ALP smear campaign), told Lateline's Tony Jones in 2004: "companies like this (James Hardie) put a lot of money, millions of dollars, really, into PR spin, and bring in professionals to spin this sort of rather deceptive web to try and con people''. And they turn to masters in deceptive spinning like Hawker Britten, which, no doubt, sent some of its hefty commission to help Bernie Banton, the most public face of the James Hardie asbestos compensation case. But the ALP is not just relying on the organisation that helped James Hardie put the best gloss on a very bad situation. It would appear it has also borrowed heavily from the collected campaigns of Bob Shrum, who started out as speech writer with Jimmy Carter's campaign for president back in 1976. It is Shrum's words that echo most frequently today and, gauging by Rudd's performance last Sunday, will get a workout during tonight's debate, though Rudd is unlikely to quote Shrum's last note to Carter: "I don't believe you stand for anything other than yourself''. As Joe Klein, one of the most insightful watchers of the US political process wrote in his best-selling Politics Lost, "all too often a Shrum candidate would be 'fighting for working families' and insisting that `health care is a right not a privilege'.'' Sounds pretty familiar. Klein also noted that Shrum's clone candidates also had a "whiff of classic know-nothingism'' which also sounds like Rudd (unless someone has sent him a memo in Mandarin) and they don't have "all that much to say about national security, except that they were for 'strength' in the world (though very often not for the use of strength)''. Of course all political parties hire consultants but those working for Labor have a somewhat tougher job preparing the scripts for their team than others might. As has been noted with some frequency by the Coalition, some 70 per cent of a Rudd front bench would be composed of former trade union officials. Labor says "so what''? And quite often they get away with it, citing traditional union leadership, widows, orphans, heartless capitalists, child labor, and so on. But many Australians recall a time when trade union bosses had actually worked at a real job within the wider community before being summoned to work within the trade union structure. And they remember Labor politicians like the late Mick Young, who were able to use to great effect the wisdom they had gleaned from their experiences of real occupations in the real world - in Mick's case, as a shearer in South Australia. Today's trade union bosses know little beyond the factional intrigues which preoccupy those in the Labor movement and they have little to contribute when they are bumped into parliament when the candidate selected by locals has had the plug pulled by head office. Yesterday's State funeral for the late Kim Beazley Sr, a thoroughly decent, moral man, as were a number of his peers on both sides of the House, reminded some observers of an era when men of calibre and experience felt they owed something to this nation and were persuaded to put themselves up for public office. For a West Australian, like Kim Sr, or his late contemporary Sir Paul Hasluck, or even the former Labor prime minister John Curtin (though a native Victorian), commuting to Canberra for parliamentary sessions was itself a huge ordeal, not to mention the stresses it placed on family life. But as arduous as the months of separation were, and as tiresome as the endless days spent travelling back and forth on trains, even ships, the burdens were accepted as part of the price of public service. That's why it is worth recalling the heartfelt remark Kim Sr made in the 1970s, around the time of his retirement, because it was not made flippantly but with deep regret for the degradation of a party that he believed once commanded respect and which he served with absolute honour. "When I first attended the conferences of the ALP,'' Kim Sr said, "I met the cream of the working class. Today when I attend those same conferences, I meet the dregs of the middle class.'' He then added: "When is the ALP going to recognise that it has a right and a responsibility to ensure that it is not regarded as the cultural spittoon of the middle classes and go back to representing the working class?'' The working class no longer exists as a definable entity as it did in Kim Sr's day but the question, in the context of the bigger question about the make-up of the party he loved, remains valid. Unfortunately, the evidence provided by the number of former Labor staffers and union apparatchiks seeking office suggests that the clear answer to his question about when the ALP will stop being regarded as the "cultural spittoon of the middle classes'' is a resounding "not yet''.