Rita Panahi: Kevin Rudd’s new appointment a big mistake for Albanese government

The decision to appoint Kevin Rudd as Australia’s next ambassador to the US is a bizarre decision bordering on certifiably insane.

The Anthony Albanese government has made its biggest mistake since being sworn in seven months ago.

To appoint the uniquely unpleasant and inept Kevin Rudd to be Australia’s next ambassador to the US, our biggest and most important ally, is a bizarre decision bordering on certifiably insane.

How long before KRudd reverts to form and starts sniping, white-anting and leaking?

This is a man who was loathed not just by his political opponents but by a significant number of his own colleagues.

The failed former PM has spent recent years embarrassing himself on Twitter with the sort of attention seeking tomfoolery that one would expect from a dysfunctional, angst-ridden teenager.

So flawed is his judgment that he lambasted the scrapping of the disastrous French sub deal and said the AUKUS deal, which has bipartisan support, left Australia “strategically naked”.

Former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd has been appointed as Australia’s next ambassador to the United States.

To reward his antics with a plum role that is also enormously important to Australia seems unwise, to say the least.

If you think I’m being too hard on Kevin then please familiarise yourself with what his own Labor colleagues have said about him over the years: Former treasurer and deputy prime minister Wayne Swann: “The truth is, the Prime Minister Rudd is deeply flawed …(with) great weaknesses which, to date, have not necessarily been seen in public.”

Former MP Steve Gibbons referred to Rudd as “a psychopath with a giant ego” and took aim at him for running again “after being comprehensively rejected by the overwhelming majority of colleagues.”

Former senior minister Nicola Roxon was no less scathing: “Nothing excuses persistently destabilising and leaking against your own team during an election, or as a senior minister or as a backbencher.”

She wasn’t done yet: “Removing Kevin (as leader) was an act of political bastardry for sure. But this act of political bastardry was made possible only because Kevin had been such a bastard himself to so many people.”

Former senior minister Stephen Conroy summed it up best when he said: “Kevin Rudd had contempt for the cabinet, contempt for the cabinet members, contempt for the caucus, contempt for the parliament, and ultimately what brought him down a year or two ago was the Australian public worked out that he had contempt for them as well.”

The Albanese government must’ve realised it had stuffed up loyally when that other miserable ghost, Malcolm Turnbull, rushed to congratulate Rudd’s appointment.