Kevin Rudd opens up about living in US, being a grandad and why he appeared in The Killing Season

WHEN ABC’s The Killing Season aired, many questioned why Labor opened itself up to such scrutiny. Now, Kevin Rudd has explained why he spilled the beans.

IT IS no secret Kevin Rudd felt betrayed by the “leadership coup” of 2010.

In the years after the very public disposal he maintained that what unfolded was wrong and that those behind the leadership spill were “backstabbers”.

So when Julia Gillard and other Labor Party figures began dishing dirt on the former prime minister describing him as a “menacing” bully who struggled being in the top job, Mr Rudd claims he never sought to publicly defend himself.

That was, he says, until this year when he appeared in the ABC’s political thriller The Killing Season.

In a wideranging interview with GQ Australia, which goes on sale on Monday, Rudd hits out at his former colleagues and explains the main reason he chose to take part in the three-part documentary was to defend himself.

“In the five years which have now elapsed since the leadership coup in June of 2010, I’d chosen not to stand up and speak in my own defence against the multiple untruthful statements made by my party colleagues at the time and since,” he says in the interview. “This was the first time that I chose to defend my record. Others have written books in the meantime — Julia Gillard has written a book, I didn’t respond to it; Wayne Swan has written a book, I haven’t responded. “When the national broadcaster chooses to produce a three-part documentary series running for five hours, and advises you that Julia and others are participating, the question you have to ask yourself is: ‘What constitutes a reasonable exercise in self-defence given I had been silent for so long?’

“So I did the program for the simple reason that for five years I’d been silent. The problem is when lies and lies are repeated and repeated and repeated. As Joseph Goebbels once observed, some people start to believe those lies are true.

“So there comes a point where you should engage in your own personal self-defence and I did so.”

K-Rudd says the allegations that he bullied Julia Gillard were unfounded.

He also rejects the suggestion that he gave Ms Gillard a platform to say he bullied and harassed her, there was no evidence of this behaviour.

“None was provided,” he says. “Zero. And it is simply untrue … On the proposition you just put from Julia, not a single witness was brought forward to substantiate that particular allegation. Not one. Including among her friends and supporters.”

Mr Rudd, who admitted to not having watched the program, still clearly feels betrayed by the spill, telling the magazine that he thought the Australian public also thinks engaging in “deceptive political conduct to bring someone down in a premeditated parliamentary coup” was wrong.

“To be politically assassinated in the middle of your political career by those who were elected to be your loyal deputy is a traumatic moment in politics,” he says. “Let’s not pretend it’s not. But that’s the past. I have embarked upon an entirely new international political vocation now, and I’m very happy with it.”

That new role is as the inaugural president of new think tank, the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York where he reportedly has been called upon by President Barack Obama to give advice on US-China relations.

When asked if this new role puts him in good stead to become secretary-general of the UN, Rudd quickly dismisses the notion saying it’s not an option because of the rotational UN system.

“It’s now the rotation of eastern Europe and last time I looked at the map, Australia wasn’t in eastern Europe,” he says.

He also tells the magazine that he is looking forward to becoming a grandfather for a second time and that he now believes that is time for Australia to support same-sex marriage.

Joel Edgerton appears on the cover of the September-October edition of GQ.

The September-October issue of GQ goes on sale on Monday.

Originally published as Kevin Rudd opens up about living in US, being a grandad and why he appeared in The Killing Season