Rudd happy to contribute to troubled mag

THE star contributor to The Monthly, Kevin Rudd, has pledged to continue to write for the magazine despite the departure of its editor, Sally Warhaft.

THE star contributor to The Monthly, Kevin Rudd, has pledged to continue to write for the magazine despite the departure of its editor, Sally Warhaft.

It was the Prime Minister's now famous 8000-word essay on extreme capitalism, and how The Monthly should respond to it, that ignited an ugly stoush between Warhaft and the magazine's publisher and board.

Warhaft enjoys Mr Rudd's respect but he said yesterday he would continue to write for The Monthly now she's gone.

Jon Faine, of ABC radio in Melbourne, asked Mr Rudd whether he would "continue to contribute" to the magazine, to which Mr Rudd replied: "Yeah, of course. I think it's a great mag.

"I'm just waiting for a, you know, a substantive response to the body of ideas I advanced in the last essay."

Warhaft, who left the magazine suddenly last Friday, was taken under the friendly wing of Mr Rudd at a function to announce the John Button Prize for Political Journalism in Melbourne on Thursday night.

It was just a day after she had been thoroughly trashed by her former employer, the magazine's publisher Morry Schwartz, which in turn followed The Australian's revelation that her relationship with The Monthly came to an end after a stoush over the manner in which the magazine should respond to Mr Rudd's essay.

The Weekend Australian understands that Warhaft wanted to commission Peter Costello to write a response to the essay.

She was overruled by Robert Manne, the chairman of The Monthly's editorial board.

She also objected to Manne's plan to say The Monthly was "surprised and gratified" Mr Rudd had offered to write the essay in the first place.

The Weekend Australian understands Mr Rudd was in conversation with Melbourne-based, Oxford-educated businessman Tom Harley, a moderate Liberal, on Thursday night, when Warhaft, who was a guest at the function, walked past. Mr Harley was in the process of offering to write a response to Mr Rudd's essay for anybody who might want to read it, when Mr Rudd took Warhaft under his arm, and spoke quietly to her.

Warhaft was herself on the Faine program yesterday, and will continue in her regular Friday slot, since she had it before she became The Monthly's editor. Asked why she was no longer editor, she replied: "I'm not going to comment at all."

Asked whether she was bound by a confidentiality agreement, she said: "I can say whatever I like, but I choose to say nothing. I have nothing to add."

Supporters of Manne continued to batter Warhaft yesterday, including Ronald A. Sharp, professor of English at New York's Vassar College, who put out a statement saying Warhaft had pursued him to write an essay, and had treated him with respect and generosity during a meeting in Melbourne but then ignored him when it was done.

"Never before, in 40 years of working with publishers and editors, had I heard of an editor simply ignoring multiple inquiries from a writer whose work had already been accepted," he said.

One of Manne's sparring partners, Gerard Henderson, said Manne appeared to resent Warhaft's "growing independence" as an editor, and that he liked to be "chief guru".