Kevin Rudd is well qualified and well equipped to be an outstandingly effective ambassador to the US. Whether he will live up to that potential is entirely up to him.
A number of former prime ministers have become ambassadors. Bob Hawke in 1983 sent Gough Whitlam to UNESCO in Paris, mainly to make sure that a disastrously unsuccessful leader, still fresh in voters’ memories, was as far away as possible.
Rudd’s appointment resembles more that of Stanley Bruce, a former PM who became high commissioner to London way back in 1933, and was so well known to senior Brits that he was in every way part of the London governing establishment and exercised great influence on Australia’s behalf.
Right now, Rudd sits at the peak of influence as a foreign policy analyst and commentator. The November/December issue of Foreign Affairs carries his essay, The World According to Xi Jinping, as its cover story.
Rudd knows everybody in the international system, certainly in the Biden administration and in think-tank land, but also throughout Asia. He also is genuinely close over many, many years to Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister he will serve.
The big question for Rudd will be whether, at this stage of his life, he can be an effective member of a team in which he is not the captain.
It is true, as Simon Birmingham has pointed out, that Rudd was sceptical of AUKUS when Scott Morrison announced it and, when in government, had been opposed to the Quad.
But these are old positions. It’s also the case that while Rudd in his post-prime ministerial life has produced an array of formidably good papers and books on China, most of his comment within Australia was disappointingly partisan. No Coalition government ever did a thing right, it seemed.
None of that impinges on Rudd’s ability to do the ambassador’s job well. He will certainly support and implement the Albanese government’s policies across the board, including on AUKUS, the Quad and everything else.
Former politicians often do well in Washington, partly because they can relate to Washington’s politicians as fellow professionals. None of the ex-ministers Australia has sent to Washington has done badly, but probably the three outstanding successes were Richard Casey, Australia’s first ambassador to the US; Percy Spender, who more than any other individual established the ANZUS alliance; and Kim Beazley, who was appointed by Labor but repeatedly extended by the Coalition because he was doing such a good job.
The hardest part of the new job for Rudd will be that he won’t be free entirely to express his own opinions. Mostly he will in any event agree with Albanese government policy, and he will have a substantial input into it. But where he disagrees with his own government it’s his job now to bite his tongue and carry out official national policy. And it will be expected that he not chip in, within Australia or internationally, on whatever issues take his fancy.
He will also need to keep his workaholic predilections under control. It is part of Rudd’s success that he works so hard but sometimes he overdoes it. Having lived in Washington on four occasions myself, I know how easy it is to do a day’s work in Washington then come home and get caught up for hours on the phone to Australia as the work day here just gets going. When Rudd overworks too much, his temper can get pretty tetchy, to put it mildly.
But Rudd certainly has a great deal to offer. Probably his friendship with Albanese is his closest in politics. Albanese voted for Beazley when Rudd challenged him for the leadership in opposition, but after that Albanese backed Rudd in every leadership ballot.
In any event, the Rudd ambassadorship is very unlikely to be boring.
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