New book claims Kevin Rudd ‘hectored’ US President George W. Bush over lack of G20 knowledge

HOW Kevin Rudd was astonished to hear President George W. Bush ask, “What’s the G20?” has been revealed in a searing new book.

IT was the phone call that humiliated a US president and revealed the chaos and hubris at the heart of Kevin Rudd’s government.

The detail of how Rudd was astonished to hear President George W. Bush ask, “What’s the G20?” has been revealed in a searing new book on Labor’s disastrous two terms in power.

Author Paul Kelly, editor-at-large at The Australian, reveals the then prime minister took a hectoring tone with Bush in a phone call at Kirribilli House.

Listening in to the call at Rudd’s invitation was The Australian’s editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell, who suggested the conversation would make a great story for the paper. Rudd agreed. The facts were double-checked with the Prime Minister’s office, but when the story broke Rudd denied that Bush had uttered those words.

He received a very frosty welcome from the President at the next G20 meeting in Washington.

This is just one remarkable disclosure from Kelly’s book Triumph And Demise, to be launched by Prime Minister Tony Abbott at Parliament House today.

Kelly has interviewed more than 60 of the key players at the heart of the dysfunction of Labor under Rudd and Julia Gillard.

Time and again they tell how Rudd’s micromanaging brought the process of government to a grinding halt.

“The Kevin Rudd story is a tragedy,” said Kelly. “Rudd had the potential to be a very good prime minister but he had two fatal flaws — he couldn’t run his government effectively and his personal relationships were never satisfactory.”

Gillard was compelled to act and topple Rudd, but it was a move that destroyed them both.

“It is most unusual that you can pinpoint a precise event on a particular night as the turning point for the destruction of a government,” Kelly said.

“The turning point was the leadership change of June 2010.

US President George W. Bush in 2008 / Picture: AP

“I argue this destroyed two Labor prime ministers. Kevin Rudd was deposed and his successor Julia Gillard was crippled in political terms because of the way she got the job.”

Former foreign minister Bob Carr told Kelly the bringing down of a first term prime minister was “a crucial error”. “From that time on the government became a Shakespearean tragedy laden with paradox and vengeance,” Carr said.

Senator John Faulkner, former Labor Party national president, said: “It is the seminal moment of the six years in government. My view was that neither of them would survive it — and neither of them did survive it.”

Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr / Picture: Mark Cranitch

Former senator John Faulkner.

Former NSW party secretary Senator Sam Dastyari agreed: “It was a mistake. In one night Julia Gillard went from being lady-in-waiting to Lady Macbeth. She was never able to get rid of that image.”

But the move was also the making of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who told Kelly: “It may seem odd to say so now, but I became leader by accident.”

Abbott was elected to the Liberal leadership by one vote after then party leader Malcolm Turnbull refused to abandon his support for carbon pricing. But unlike their Labor opposites, Abbott and Turnbull worked successfully together after the leadership changed hands.

“I never found Tony to be slippery or treacherous or disingenuous,” said Turnbull. “In so far as he was a stabber, he was a front stabber with ample warning.”

Kelly said: “The Labor contest was purely about power; the Liberal contest was about substantial issues of policy, unity and identity.”

When asked for a comment, a spokesperson said: “Mr Rudd’s office has no comment to make.”

Journalist Paul Kelly’s Triumph & Demise / Picture: Supplied