Kevin still here to help ... but does anyone want it?

“My name’s Kevin, I’m from Queensland, I’m here to help.”

“Ten years ago I told Australia ‘My name’s Kevin, I’m from Queensland, I’m here to help’,” tweeted Kevin Rudd in April 2017. The former prime minister remains driven by his unsolicited and unique version of altruism. “I still am,” he declared.

As to exactly who and what has benefited from the helping hand of Kevin, no-one really knows, excluding pink batts installers, Harvey Norman franchisees, people-smugglers and builders of ridiculously expensive school canteens.

#Flashback. Ten years ago I told Australia "My name's Kevin, I'm from Queensland, I'm here to help." I still am. pic.twitter.com/oXsVP3Covk

— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) April 30, 2017

When the transcript of a phone conversation between prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and US president Donald Trump was leaked last week, Rudd was there to help US news network CNNI with his perspective. For Turnbull, Rudd stated, the transcript would prove a “very large scale domestic problem concerning his own credibility.”

“It goes to deep questions concerning his honesty and integrity of his dealings with the Australian people,” continued Rudd. On the contrary, the transcript shows a composed Turnbull skilfully deflecting a volatile Trump. How would Rudd, the self-styled international statesman, have handled the conversation? To paraphrase Rudd in a Copenhagen setting, perhaps Turnbull should have demonstrated his honesty and integrity by racing from the room and telling the assembled journalists: “Those American f...kers are trying to rat-f...k us!”.

Impressively, Rudd managed to keep a straight face when he informed American viewers that “records of conversations between heads of government should never be leaked.” This, from the prime minster who in 2008 leaked president George W. Bush’s “What’s the G20?” gaffe, which permanently damaged relations between the two leaders? In an act of desperation, former prime minister Julia Gillard restored Rudd to the front bench in 2010 to stop him from leaking.

Turnbull’s decision last year not to nominate Rudd for the position of United Nations secretary-general forever guaranteed the latter’s animosity. One only has to examine Rudd’s Twitter account to see the frequent and petty sniping which followed that rejection. Could this be the same Rudd who, when PM and with much overt piousness and carefully planned choreography, gave his doorstop press conferences each Sunday at St John’s Anglican Church in Canberra?

Surely a man of the faith such as he would observe the words of Matthew (5:44) “But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Evidently no. Turnbull, Rudd told CNNI, was “basically abrogating core principles that he once stood for.”

As for core principles, Kevin and consistency may alliterate, but they were never synonymous. In his election campaign of 2007 Rudd described himself as a “fiscal conservative”. By the time he was ousted in June 2010 his financial legacy was an unfunded fiscal burden of $153 billion, despite inheriting a substantial Budget surplus when he became PM. Yet as recently as yesterday, Rudd was portraying himself as the economic version of Churchill who saved his country from the Global Financial Crisis.

I remain proud of my government's actions to protect Oz during GFC. @TheAusInstitute research says Aussies are too. https://t.co/VIx9dVilmg pic.twitter.com/oZvUBckzuV

— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) August 9, 2017

And what an imaginative recollection Rudd has when it comes to his policies on border protection, especially with his claim last month that the Coalition should have resettled Manus Island-based asylum-seekers in Australia three years ago. Rudd had three core principles — all differing — when it came to asylum-seekers. Humanitarian, when he dismantled the Howard Government’s Pacific Solution; hapless, with his incompetent attempts to counter the subsequent influx of unlawful arrivals; and hard line when he advocated a secure borders approach in the 2013 election. “People who come by boat now have no prospect of being resettled in Australia,” announced then PM Rudd in July 2013. “The rules have changed.” When Rudd told CNNI “I think the real unfolding dynamic … is prime minister Turnbull having been loose with the truth”, he could only have been projecting.

I'm motivated to help solve the global crisis in water & sanitation. We can end it together #SDG6 #wwweek #WaterWeek pic.twitter.com/VHrGrSeucz

— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) September 1, 2016

“I’m motivated to help solve the global crisis in water & sanitation,” tweeted Rudd in August 2016. It was quite an epiphany. In November 2015 he had no such inclinations, telling then editor-in-chief of The Australian Chris Mitchell that he did not want to be the “commissar for shit” — a reference to his chairing the global partnership Sanitation and Water for All.

Even disregarding his flexible core principles, Rudd, who was obsessed with symbolism and showmanship, was never a viable candidate for UN secretary-general. He was not short of grand ideas, but never possessed the stamina to seem them through. In 2008 Rudd hosted the Australia 2020 summit, which promised to “help shape a long-term strategy for the nation’s future”. Comprising one thousand of the so-called “best and brightest from across the country”, the summit took place over a weekend, producing around 900 recommendations. “This gathering of 1000 Australians in the Great Hall, then, is not an end in itself,” proclaimed the initial summit report. Tick, tick, tick.

Rudd’s international ambitions were similarly quixotic, such as his plans for an Asia-Pacific Community, which were shelved in 2010. The Mandarin-speaking Rudd flaunted much of his supposed expertise in Sino relations, yet at best the Chinese government seems to have regarded him with polite bemusement. “To speak Chinese is not to know China,” said then Australian ambassador to China Dr Geoff Raby in 2011. “Many examples can be found of people who speak Mandarin to a high level but who do not understand how China works.”

Decrying Turnbull’s assertion that he had “neither the skills nor the temperament to be a candidate for the UN SG,” Rudd remains defiant. “I think, though, in the counsels of the world, that will reflect poorly on him,” he said.

They will not.

If Turnbull needed any vindication in his judgment of Rudd’s weakness of character, it would be found in the leaked video of the behind-the-scenes Kevin, with his boorish outbursts and loss of control. Rudd can nurse a grudge all he likes, but in light of his petulant reaction to his rejection, his political commentary on the Turnbull government is unlikely to be perceived as objective.

His name is Kevin, he has an ego the size of Queensland, and he is here to help remind us of those who have wronged him. On that note, did I mention his upcoming autobiography consists of two volumes?