PM doesn't merit benefit of doubt

KEVIN Rudd was swept to power on the back of public dissatisfaction with politicians misrepresenting the truth and avoiding taking responsibility for their actions. Rudd, we were told, would operate differently. But evidence continues to mount that Rudd is just another politician, prepared to tiptoe around the truth when it suits him. He is a man with feet of clay after all.

Revelations that Rudd was less than honest about his late 2005 email exchanges with disgraced former West Australian premier Brian Burke tell a story about the character of our new Prime Minister.

Rudd had met Burke for breakfast, lunch and dinner while he was in Perth in late July and early August 2005. Thereafter Burke exchanged emails with Rudd on no less than nine occasions as the pair tried to arrange a dinner for Rudd to meet senior WA journalists and Labor Party heavyweights, including the notorious head of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, Energy Union, Kevin Reynolds.

Last year Rudd claimed he cancelled the dinner because he feared that attending a function arranged by Burke would have been inappropriate. The emails reproduced in The Australian yesterday, however, reveal a very different reason the dinner never went ahead: Rudd's overseas schedule unexpectedly changed so he couldn't guarantee he would be in Perth for the dinner. Rudd was "sorry to do this" and it was "out of (his) hands", he told Burke by email.

If Rudd was just trying to brush Burke off diplomatically, as his office claimed yesterday, we need to see Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade records to prove the changed travel arrangements were only illusionary. If they weren't, then Rudd's office is again trying to mislead us.

This, remember, was taking place when then WA premier Geoff Gallop had a ban in place on his state ministers to prevent them talking to Burke. Rudd claims he knew nothing of the ban, a claim that stretches credibility. Gallop's ban was well known within the Labor Party, both inside and outside of Perth. If Rudd truly didn't know about the ban, it only shows he didn't have his finger on the pulse.

What Rudd certainly did know was that Burke had been embroiled in the WA Inc corruption scandal of the 1980s and was sent to jail for travel rorts in 1994. Yet he met him anyway and, we now know, engaged in a series of emails about the possibility of a further dinner.

When it comes to being loose with the truth, Rudd has form. Consider that last year he said his office knew nothing of a false dawn service planned for Long Tan to coincide with the Seven Network's Sunrise program to commemorate Anzac Day. It was later revealed that Rudd's office had been in correspondence with Seven over the matter. Rudd was either lying or spoke before checking the facts.

In an interview on FM radio last year, Rudd was questioned as to why he used a petrol-guzzling four-wheel-drive rather than a hybrid low-emission vehicle as his parliamentary car, given his advocacy of all things climate change. He told listeners the choice of parliamentary cars did not include the hybrid variety. It does. Again, Rudd was either lying or didn't check his facts.

And when it was revealed that Rudd attended a New York strip club to watch naked dancers the age of his daughter lap-dance around him, Rudd denied anything untoward happened, simultaneously claiming he couldn't remember exactly what went on. The two observations, of course, don't logically fit together.

Minor misdemeanours, to be sure, but they go to a pattern of Rudd's behaviour. He claims he has "no specific recollection" of the Labor leadership being discussed at the meetings he did have with Burke in the second half of 2005. But with his track record of being loose with the truth, Rudd no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt.

One of Rudd's favourite terms of insult when in Opposition was to accuse others of being "loose with the truth". He levelled the accusation at John Howard on matters ranging from the children overboard affair to the Iraq war.

Rudd has never been backward in coming forward when accusing others of lying. What is that saying about people in glass houses?

WA Premier Alan Carpenter has been quick to sack state ministers and public officials found to have lied about their relationship and dealings with Burke. If Rudd were one of Carpenter's ministers, having misrepresented his dealings with Burke as we now know he has, Carpenter would have sacked him by now.

Peter van Onselen is an associate professor in politics and government at Edith Cowan University in Perth.