Imagine from Kevin Rudd’s perspective how his career would have turned out if not for News Corp. In his mind, the last day of his prime ministership would have been in December 2016. Despite his party and an adoring public begging him to remain in office, Rudd is bound for New York to assume his new role as UN secretary-general. “I could not have had a wiser, more knowledgeable, or more inspiring mentor than Kevin,” says a tearful Julia Gillard, as she is sworn in as the new prime minister.
But sadly, nefarious forces under the guise of commentary conspired to bring him down, hence Rudd’s petition for a royal commission to expose their wrongdoing. Fortunately, his resilience is as strong as ever. When he told CNN in May he had “lost a general election and ceased to be prime minister in part … because of the tactics of the Murdoch media empire,” he prefaced this by saying “I’ve got fairly broad shoulders”.
Here is just a sample of the Murdochracy’s sinister attacks on Rudd. First, ABC’s Kerry O’Brien, 7.30 Report, May 12, 2010: “Do you understand why so many people have turned against you now, Kevin Rudd – not just the government [but] Kevin Rudd – and do you accept they have judged your leadership and found you wanting?”
Fairfax’s David Marr in Quarterly Essay, June 2010: “Being an arsehole is no bar to high office … But of Rudd it has to be said that there is a large number of people who, having worked with him as a diplomat, public servant, shadow minister, leader of the Opposition or lately as prime minister, loathe the man”.
Phillip Coorey, Sydney Morning Herald, June 14, 2010: “It was always said when Rudd unravelled, it would be spectacular. People are deserting him as quickly as they embraced him.” Tony Wright, SMH, June 18, 2010, on Rudd’s speech at the Canberra press gallery’s midwinter ball: “Rudd sounded like an angry soul desperately trying to overcompensate. Could the rat in his story be Marr and, by extension, the journalists who had invited the PM to the ball?”
Rod Tiffen, SMH, June 19, 2010: “Last year’s champ is this year’s chump. Rudd is no longer the man who achieved record approval for so long, but simply the man who blew it.”
Tim Soutphommasane, The Guardian, June 24, 2010: “Rudd’s leadership style was his worst enemy … Rudd ultimately failed to convey any conviction or vision as PM. Many of his critics would say that it was because he had neither.”
Michelle Grattan, SMH, July 31, 2010: “Kevin Rudd has Labor’s campaign in turmoil, and nobody has a clue how his rogue behaviour will play over the crucial third week.” Nine’s political editor Laurie Oakes, April 9, 2011: “One of the Labor MPs who tossed Kevin Rudd out of the prime ministership summed up the brutal reality of the current situation yesterday: ‘We are as much in coalition with Kevin as we are with Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor or Andrew Wilkie.’ Spot on.”
ABC’s Barrie Cassidy, November 15, 2013: “For Rudd it was different. He was treated differently because he was different: autocratic, exclusive, disrespectful and at times flat-out abusive.”
Former NSW premier and now federal Labor Senator Kristina Keneally, The Guardian, February 16, 2016: “Kevin Rudd … governed like a toddler: obsessed with a new, bright, shiny toy one day, only to be off in another direction the next, distracted by the next policy toy…” Joe Aston, Fin Review, April 7, 2020 “Except Labor’s caucus did soon figure out Kevin, and wisely rissoled the prick.”
Shall I go on or have I made my point?
In pushing for a royal commission, Rudd maintains this is not about him, and that he is motivated by the need for media diversity and balanced journalism. “And it’s not just targeted at News Corporation,” he told ABC presenter Fran Kelly on October 12.
Really? Just eight days later he told ABC Drive host Patricia Karvelas “Well my primary – in fact my sole basis for the petition in Australia is about Murdoch’s influence within Australian politics…”
His standard response to criticism by News Corp commentators is to claim “character assassination”.
Morrison's Govt awash in corruption, but what does Murdoch put on page 1? Surprise, surprise. Another character assassination attempt based on selective, twisted accounts of me seeking fairer coverage for Labor 15yrs ago. Anything to avoid the substance of #MurdochRoyalCommission pic.twitter.com/BoYa6dcsv3
— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) November 28, 2020
He abhors such behaviour, apparently. As he told ABC Insiders in 2013 following his ousting of Gillard, “Julia’s record, I honour. I will not be engaged in any character assassination of her or her political and policy reform record. I believe we should be building one another up, not be in the business of tearing one another down.”
And this: “I [will] not be engaging in any negative commentary in relation to Julia’s prime ministership. I believe that is simply wrong in principle.”
Rudd’s problem is his mandible, not Murdoch. In closing: Carmel Egan, The Age, December 3, 2006: “His parliamentary opponents believe they have already identified Rudd’s weak spot … a glass jaw.” Kerry O’Brien, 7.30 Report, November 21, 2007: “Since you’ve became leader you’ve developed a bit of a reputation for having a glass jaw particularly in regard to your dealings with the media.” Eleanor Hall, ABC’s The World Today, June 25, 2007: “It’s his glass jaw essentially and his attempt to micro-manage.”
The late Alan Ramsey, SMH, March 31, 2007, on Rudd’s haranguing of Sun-Herald editor Simon Dulhunty regarding a story by Kerry-Anne Walsh that disputed the then opposition leader’s claim that he and his mother were evicted from their rented dairy farm soon after the death of his father: “Kevin Rudd has a dangerously glass jaw.”
As Oakes later put to Rudd at the National Press Club regarding his attempt to kill that story: “How do you explain or excuse this sort of thing; do you really think you can heavy the media, and what are you going to do about the glass jaw?”
Nearly 16 years later, it remains as fragile as ever. And just quietly, I’m not sure about those broad shoulders.
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Speaking of glass jaws – Monday’s edition of The Australian featured what could well be the lengthiest letter ever published in this paper. The author was one Peter FitzSimons, SMH columnist and author, and he was a tad peeved about an article in the weekend edition regarding his latest book ‘Breaker Morant’.
“The latest plea (Respect for justice and law died with Breaker Morant) penned by James Unkles, takes direct aim at my recent book on Breaker,” wrote an indignant FitzSimons. “He says I overlooked the ‘appalling injustice’ Morant and his men received ‘at the hands of their British superiors’. Seriously?” And on it went.
And yesterday, FitzSimons appeared on ABC’s The Drum where friend and host Julia Baird allowed him a remarkable four-minute spiel to vent about Unkles’ article. Referring to Morant’s claim that British Boer War commander Lord Kitchener had given orders to execute prisoners, FitzSimons tersely declared “There were no such orders … and if Mr Unkles said, you know, ‘there’s proof of this,’ let’s see it, mate”.
To which I can only refer FitzSimons to an article he himself wrote in 2016 concerning the advice he received as a young adult that helped him become the great man he is today: “To this day, when I come across attack-dog pieces about how the Australian Republican Movement could be so much better if I wasn’t chairman, or how terrible one of my books is, I just don’t read on. I suppose I could go through every paragraph and dwell on the unfairness for days on end, write angry letters and all the rest, but why bother? Personally, I am not in the bicker business…” He’s not? Well, he certainly fooled me.
As for his assertion “Morant was a despicable war criminal, responsible for the deaths of innocent prisoners,” I do not dispute that, although whether he received a fair trial is another matter. But let’s examine what FitzSimons said of Ned Kelly, the Australian outlaw who murdered three police officers at Stringybark Creek in Victoria in 1878.
The policeman who led the doomed party, Sergeant Michael Kennedy – an honest man with an impeccable service record – was initially only wounded in that ambush. He begged for mercy as he lay on the ground, unarmed and helpless. Nonetheless Kelly shot and killed his prisoner in cold blood and robbed the three dead policemen of valuables which the gang used as trophies. Kennedy would leave behind a widow and five young children.
So what does FitzSimons make of Kelly? Put it this way, these were his closing words in that biography:
Vale, Ned Kelly
You were a one-off
You were an Australian original
Mate, we remember you.
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