Rudd’s moral vanity is worse than ever

YOU would’ve thought Labor had learned the lesson on stopping the boats. But if you listen to Kevin Rudd and Anthony Albanese, history may be about to repeat itself, writes Miranda Devine.

AH, Kevin Rudd is back.

It’s as if he never left. In Australia to spruik his book, his eccentricities of speech and manner seem exaggerated now, maybe because he’s dropped his guard living in New York where locals regard them as quaint Australianisms.

But he’s also dropped his guard on border protection. In fact, on Monday night, both Rudd and Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese let the cat out of the bag on the ruse that Labor is serious about “stopping the boats”.

Rudd had the gall to tell 730 that the government is “inhumane” because it secured our borders.

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The tough guy Labor prime minister of 2013 who thundered: “Asylum seekers who come here by boat without a visa will never be settled in Australia”, now tells us he didn’t actually mean it.

“Under the terms of the agreement which we had initialled and signed … with both Nauru and PNG … the terms of the agreement were one-year, renewable,” he said, unctuously.

So, when Rudd said “never”, he meant “or for one year”. Bet the people smugglers are taking notes on that one.

It seems now that when Rudd said “never”, what he really meant was “or for one year”. Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith

“What the conservatives have done since 2013 is take that agreement, not subjected it to annual review [and] make a point of making these arrangements as inhumane as possible, as cruel as possible, frankly to satisfy their racist base here in Australia rather than deal with this humanitarian challenge in a balanced way.”

Yeah, the “balanced way” he did in 2008 when he dismantled John Howard’s border protection, opening the floodgates to 50,000 unauthorised boat arrivals and more than 1000 frownings, only to backflip after the damage was done and lock up kids on Manus Island and Nauru.

Rudd is history, but Albanese, his former deputy, is a shadow minister and potential Labor leader. He told Q&A that if Labor forms government, it would somehow “stop the boats” without the need for offshore detention. Instead it would “fund the UNHCR properly” and double the refugee intake.

“There wouldn’t be any [boats]. That’s the point,” he said, in the most delusional statement of the week. Everyone knows that the minute Labor wins office, the people smugglers will be back in business.