Rudd's bipartisan masterstroke

YOU really do have to hand it to Kevin Rudd, he is quite the politician. He knows how to shuffle and move with the best of them. On Thursday he announced Kim Beazley and Brendan Nelson would be taking up important overseas diplomatic posts, Beazley in the US and Nelson in Europe.

Rudd has been hailed for not playing party politics with the appointments, showing how reasonable he is by offering both sides of the partisan divide an opportunity to represent Australia overseas.

The bipartisan gesture by Rudd came two weeks after he launched a most unfair, partisan attack on the economic legacy of the John Howard-led Coalition government. He suggested it had been slothful and lazy on economic reform, incomparable to the quality of the reforming legacy of the Hawke and Keating governments.

The reaction to Rudd's attacks on Howard was almost universally negative in the media. After all, voters weren't lined up with baseball bats to knock Howard out of power in 2007; it was simply a matter of it being time for a change. Most Australians accept that his government was good at managing the economy and was prepared to pursue a reforming agenda on issues ranging from tax and industrial relations to bank regulation.

Something had to be done. Rudd couldn't risk being seen as too much of a partisan warrior. That might have seen his record high popularity begin to dissipate. What better way to respond to the negative reactions than to paint himself as above politics with the dual diplomatic appointments of Beazley and Nelson?

Problem solved, order restored. Rudd can continue as Australia's most popular Prime Minister.

It was quite obvious that Malcolm Turnbull was caught on the hop by the decision to appoint Nelson; he could hardly hide his shock behind a fake grin when confronted by the media for a comment. He must have been wondering if Nelson knew about the offer when he decided to resign from parliament, giving Turnbull the headache of a by-election in his north Sydney seat of Bradfield. However, apparently Nelson got the offer only after announcing his retirement, leaving the thesis that Rudd did it for appearances still on the table.

In fairness to Rudd, he long has been an advocate for reducing the number of partisan foreign postings. Since he became Prime Minister he has made appointments from both sides of politics, as he had earlier suggested he would. The argument is that Australia, as a small nation of little more than 20million people, needs to draw on itsbest advocates, whatever their political stripes.

It hasn't always been so.

In early 2006, as opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Rudd launched a scathing attack on Howard for "the comprehensive prostitution of Australia's diplomatic service". He said: "John Howard needs to learn that the Australian diplomatic service is not a Liberal Party employment agency."

Rudd's criticism was sparked by Howard's appointment of former defence minister Robert Hill as ambassador to the UN.

Rudd noted that both sides of politics made political appointments, but the UN appointment was traditionally reserved for a non-politician and Howard's government had made political appointments at a rate twice as fast as similar appointments by the Hawke and Keating governments.

Rudd argued that no previous government of either political persuasion had sent to the UN anyone but a trained professional from the diplomatic service. The reason? "The fulcrum of Australia's multi-layered, multilateral diplomacy involving core questions of war and peace" required for the UN posting. When Hill stepped down from the UN posting after Rudd became prime minister, he did not replace him with another politician.

Rudd would have known that the timing of the announcement of the Beazley and Nelson appointments was good for his image of being above politics, but that doesn't mean it doesn't fit within his worthwhile framework for diplomatic appointments more generally. In fact Labor insiders have expressed their annoyance privately at Rudd's tendency to act above politics in making diplomatic appointments. They feel that after 11 years of being shut out of such postings, it is time to square the ledger. No reasonable person would agree.

Few would doubt that Beazley and Nelson will represent Australia effectively when they take up their posts (though exactly how Nelson will put his scathing view of Australia's emissions trading scheme being implemented ahead of climate change talks in Copenhagen to one side when doing his job will be interesting to watch).

Let's just hope Rudd's bipartisan approach doesn't lead him to offer the Coalition's foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop the ambassadorship to China when it becomes available. It would be nice to continue to have some sort of relationship with theChinese.

I have history with Rudd when it comes to analysing when politicians qualify for diplomatic posts. I was critical of his comments about Hill back in 2006. I accused him of hypocrisy in condemning Howard for such appointments when Labor wasn't much better. Sarcastically I noted that Rudd's opposition to political appointments was "a shame because with his command of Mandarin he would one day make an excellent ambassador to China". Little did I know that he would go on to become a Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister instead.

Rudd responded with an opinion piece oozing with facts to counter my arguments. He pointed out that he didn't have a problem with political appointments per se, just the fact Howard was making partisan appointments at a rate of one every six months. Objectively speaking, Rudd won the debate, although his rhetoric in condemning the Hill appointment was over the top and unnecessary. His description of Howard's overseas appointments as "comprehensive prostitution" didn't quite match his well-argued criticisms.

When he was a shadow minister scratching for media exposure, Rudd's extreme rhetoric could be forgiven. Back then he did things such as call Howard a liar, hardly a graceful remark for an up-and-coming politician, but sure to get your face on television. But now that Rudd is Prime Minister he needs to become more measured in his use of the English language, lest his remaining time in office becomes littered with underachievements because he oversold his case rhetorically.

As the old saying goes, don't over-promise and under-deliver: try to do the opposite. A former diplomat such as Rudd should know that.

An "education revolution", "fixing public hospitals" and threatening to take them over from the states, outlining a war on drugs and gambling (among many others) and committing to "end the blame game" with the states are all examples of rhetorical colour by Rudd that his administration will struggle to live up to.

When he describes climate change as the greatest challenge of our generation, Rudd prepares us for drastic action. A 5 per cent emissions cut by 2020 doesn't exactly live up to the size of problem he identifies.

In all likelihood Rudd's rhetoric overreaches because he gets white line fever when speaking to the cameras or because he is passionate about the issues he talks about. Either way he needs to learn how to better manage expectations. But on the issue of the diplomatic appointments of Beazley and Nelson, it isn't rhetorical overreach to call Thursday's announcements a masterstroke.