Kevin Michael Rudd, born 21 September 1957 is an Australian politician. He was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia (2007–2010) and is currently the Minister for Foreign Affairs. He has been an Australian Labor Party member of the House of Representatives since the 1998 federal election, representing Griffith, Queensland.
Rudd was born in Queensland and grew up on a dairy farm. He joined the Australian Labor Party at the age of 15 and was dux of Nambour State High School in 1974. He studied an arts degree in Asian studies at the Australian National University, majoring in Chinese language and Chinese history. In 1981, he married Thérèse Rein and they have three children. He worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs from 1981 and from 1988 he was Chief of Staff to the Queensland Labor Opposition Leader and later Premier, Wayne Goss. After the Goss government lost office in 1995, Rudd was hired as a Senior China Consultant by the accounting firm KPMG Australia.
Rudd was elected to Parliament in 1998 and was promoted to the Labor frontbench in 2001 as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. In December 2006 he had become Labor Leader and Leader of the Opposition, and the party overtook the incumbent Liberal/National coalition government led by John Howard, in both party and leadership polling. Rudd made policy announcements on areas such as industrial relations, climate change, an "education revolution", a National Broadband Network, and health. Labor won the 2007 election, with a 23-seat swing. The Rudd government's first acts included signing the Kyoto Protocol and delivering an apology to Indigenous Australians for the stolen generations. The previous government's industrial relations legislation, WorkChoices, was largely dismantled, Australia's remaining Iraq War combat personnel were withdrawn, and the "Australia 2020 Summit" was held. In response to the Global Financial Crisis, the government provided economic stimulus packages, and Australia was one of the few western countries to avoid the late-2000s recession.
Beginning with Rudd's election to the Labor leadership, the party enjoyed a long period of high popularity in the opinion polls. However, a significant fall in Rudd's personal electoral standing was blamed on a proposed Resource Super Profits Tax and the deferral of the Senate-rejected Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The decline in his government's support in opinion polls and growing dissatisfaction of his leadership within the Labor Party led his deputy, Julia Gillard, to announce on 23 June 2010 that she would contest the leadership in a caucus ballot the following day. Knowing he would be defeated if he contested the leadership, Rudd stepped down as party leader and Prime Minister on the morning of the ballot.
He successfully recontested his parliamentary seat at the 2010 election, and was subsequently promoted back to cabinet as Minister for Foreign Affairs in Gillard's Labor minority government.
Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd was the second Queenslander to lead his party to a federal election victory, the first being Andrew Fisher in 1910. Rudd was the first Prime Minister since World War II not to come from either New South Wales or Victoria and the fourth prime minister from Queensland.
Early initiatives of the Rudd Government included the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, a Parliamentary Apology to the Stolen Generations and the 2020 Summit.
During their first two years in office, Rudd and his government set records for popularity in Newspoll polling.
By 2010, the Prime Minister's approval ratings had dropped significantly and controversies had arisen over management of economic stimulus following the Global Financial Crisis; the delay of the government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme; asylum seeker policies; and debate over a proposed "super profits" tax on the mining industry.
The United States diplomatic cables leaks reveal that Robert McCallum, the former US ambassador to Australia, described Rudd as a ‘control freak’ and ‘a micro-manager’ obsessed with managing the media cycle rather than engaging in collaborative decision making". Diplomats also criticized Rudd's foreign policy record and considered Rudd's ‘missteps’ largely arose from his propensity to make ‘snap announcements without consulting other countries or within the Australian government’.
On 23 June 2010, following significant media speculation and after it became apparent Rudd had lost the support of key factional heads within the Labor Party, deputy prime minister Julia Gillard requested a leadership ballot for the following day, which Rudd announced he would himself contest.
Environment
In opposition, Rudd called climate change "the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time" and called for a cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 60% before 2050. On 3 December 2007, as his first official act after being sworn in, Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol. On 15 December 2008, Rudd released a White Paper on reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. The White Paper included a plan to introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2010 that is known as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and gave a target range for Australia's greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 of between 5% and 15% less than 2000 levels. The White Paper was criticised by the Federal Government's climate change advisor, Professor Ross Garnaut. Rudd criticised the opposition Liberal Party for its refusal to support the new legislation ("What absolute political cowardice, what absolute failure of leadership, what absolute failure of logic . but on 4 May 2009 announced that the Government would delay implementing an emissions trading scheme until 2011. Rudd also deferred the CPRS legislation until 2013.
Rudd was unable to achieve any significant action on a national response to climate change, and abandoned his vision in the face of political opposition. Many of Rudd's minor climate change initiatives were scrapped or slashed by Julia Gillard.
Iraq War
In accordance with a Multinational Force Iraq agreement with the new Iraqi Government, Labor's plan to withdraw the Australian Defence Force "combat" contingent was completed on 28 July 2009, three days ahead of the deadline. In mid-2010, there were about 65 ADF personnel remaining in Iraq supporting UN operations or the Australian Embassy.
Afghanistan War
While shadow minister for foreign affairs, Rudd said that Afghanistan was 'terrorism central'. In July 2005 he said:
It's time to recognise once and for all that terrorism central is Afghanistan. You see, a lot of Jemaah Islamiah's terrorist operations in South East Asia are financed by the reconstitution of the opium crop in Afghanistan – $2.3 billion a year worth of narco-finance flowing out of Afghanistan into terrorist groups here in our region, our neighbourhood, our backyard.
As Prime Minister, Rudd has continued to support Australian military involvement in Afghanistan, despite the growing number of Australian casualties. On 29 April 2009, Rudd committed 450 extra troops to the region bringing the total to 1550.
Explaining the deployment he said:
A measured increase in Australian forces in Afghanistan will enhance the security of Australian citizens, given that so many terrorists attacking Australians in the past have been trained in Afghanistan.
On a November 2009 visit to Afghanistan, Rudd told Australian troops: "We from Australia will remain for the long haul. In April 2010, the Australian Government decided not to commit further troops to Uruzgan province to replace Dutch forces when they withdraw, but increased the numbers of diplomatic, development aid, and police personnel to around 50 with military effort and civilian work focussed on Uruzgan.
The United States diplomatic cables leak reported Rudd's criticisms of Australia's European allies in the Afghanistan campaign.
Education
During the election, Rudd promised a "Digital Education Revolution", including provision of a computer on the desk of every upper secondary student. The program initially stalled with state governments asserting that the proposed funding was inadequate. The federal government increased proposed funding from $1.2 billion to $2 billion, and did not mandate that a computer be provided to each upper secondary student.
Immigration
As Prime Minister, Rudd professed his belief in a 'Big Australia', while his government increased the immigration quota after to around 300,000 people. In 2010, Rudd appointed Tony Burke as population minister to examine population goals.
In 2008, the government adjusted the Mandatory detention policies established by the Keating and Howard governments and declared an end to the Pacific Solution. Boat arrivals increased considerably during 2009 and the Opposition said this was due to the government's policy adjustments, the Government said it was due to "push factors".
After a fatal explosion on an asylum seeker boat in April 2009, Rudd said: "People smugglers are the vilest form of human life." Opposition frontbencher Tony Abbott said that Kevin Rudd was inept and hypocritical in his handling of the issue during the Oceanic Viking affair of October 2009. In April 2010, the Rudd government suspended processing new claims by Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers, who comprised 80 per cent of all boat arrivals, for three and six months respectively.
Rudd commissioned the Henry Tax Review, to undertake a "root and branch" review of the Australian taxation system. In 2010, the Rudd government pursued its proposal for a new 40% tax on the "super profits" of resource companies to offset a lower corporate tax rate and some adjustments to superannuation. In the face of strong opposition from the mining industry, the government exempted itself from its own guidelines on taxpayer-funded advertising and launched an advertising campaign in support of its tax policy proposal. During the 2007 election campaign, Rudd had described tax payer funded political advertising as "a long-term cancer on our democracy", but he said that a government funded campaign was needed in 2010 on this issue.
Healthcare
Rudd announced a significant and far-reaching strategic reform to Australian healthcare in 2010.However, this was not pursued beyond in-principle agreements with Labor State and Territory governments, and was scrapped by Julia Gillard during her first year in office.
Political positions
Economics
In his first speech to parliament, Rudd stated that:
Competitive markets are massive and generally efficient generators of economic wealth. They must therefore have a central place in the management of the economy. But markets sometimes fail, requiring direct government intervention through instruments such as industry policy. There are also areas where the public good dictates that there should be no market at all. We are not afraid of a vision in the Labor Party, but nor are we afraid of doing the hard policy yards necessary to turn that vision into reality. Parties of the Centre Left around the world are wrestling with a similar challenge – the creation of a competitive economy while advancing the overriding imperative of a just society. Some call this the 'third way'. The nomenclature is unimportant. What is important is that it is a repudiation of Thatcherism and its Australian derivatives represented opposite. It is in fact a new formulation of the nation's economic and social imperatives.
Rudd is critical of free market economists such as Friedrich Hayek, although Rudd describes himself as "basically a conservative when it comes to questions of public financial management", pointing to his slashing of public service jobs as a Queensland governmental advisor. In The Longest Decade by George Megalogenis, Rudd reflected on his views of economic reform undertaken in the past couple of decades:
The Hawke and Keating governments delivered a massive program of economic reform, and they didn't shy away from taking on their own political base when they knew it was in the national interest. Think tariffs. Think cuts to the marginal tax rate. Think enterprise bargaining. Think how unpopular all of those were with the trade union movement of Australia. Mr Howard, on the other hand, never took on his own political base in the prosecution of any significant economic reform. His reform agenda never moved out of the ideological straitjacket of the 1970s and 1980s.
Think industrial relations. Think consumption tax. And think also of the explosion in untargeted welfare... When the economic circumstances change, and the demands of a competitive economy change, Mr Howard never adjusted and never took the lead when it came to new ideas. Look at climate change. Look at infrastructure policy. Look at education policy. Look at early childhood education. There's a mountain of economic evidence about the importance of those policy domains to Australia's future.
Early life and family
Rudd was born in Nambour, Queensland to parents Albert Rudd and Margaret née DeVere, and grew up on a dairy farm in nearby Eumundi. At an early age (5–7) he contracted rheumatic fever and spent a considerable time at home convalescing. It damaged his heart, but this was only discovered some 12 years later. Farm life, which required the use of horses and guns, is where he developed his life-long love of horse riding and shooting clay targets. When Rudd was 11, his father, a share farmer and Country Party member, died from septicaemia after six weeks in hospital due to a car accident. Rudd states that the family was required to leave the farm amidst financial difficulty between two to three weeks after the death, though the family of the landowner states that the Rudds didn't have to leave for almost six months. Rudd joined the Australian Labor Party in 1972 at the age of 15. He boarded at Marist College Ashgrove in Brisbane although these years were not happy due to the indignity of poverty and reliance on charity – he was known to be a "charity case" due to his father's sudden death; and, he has since described the school as "... tough, harsh, unforgiving, institutional Catholicism of the old school. Two years later, after she retrained as a nurse, his mother moved the family to Nambour, and Rudd rebuilt his standing through study and scholastic application and was dux of Nambour State High School in 1974. In that year he was also the Queensland winner of the Rotary 'Youth Speaks for Australia' public speaking contest.
Rudd is of English and Irish descent. His paternal 4th great-grandparents were English and of convict heritage: Thomas Rudd and Mary Cable (she was from Essex). Thomas arrived from London, England in 1801, Mary in 1804. Thomas Rudd, a convict, arrived in NSW on board the Earl Cornwallis in 1801. He was convicted of stealing a bag of sugar.
Rudd studied at the Australian National University in Canberra where he resided at Burgmann College and graduated with First Class Honours in Arts (Asian Studies). He majored in Chinese language and Chinese history, became proficient in Mandarin and acquired a Chinese name, Lù Kèwén (traditional Chinese: 陸克文 or in simplified Chinese: 陆克文).
Society and religion
Some commentators have described Rudd as a social conservative. While moving to remove financial discrimination against LGBT couples, he has remained opposed to same-sex marriage:
I have a pretty basic view on this, as reflected in the position adopted by our party, and that is, that marriage is between a man and a woman.
In a conscience vote in 2006, Rudd supported legislation to transfer regulatory authority for the abortion-inducing drug RU486 from the federal Minister For Health to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, removing the minister's veto on the use of RU486 in Australia. Rudd said that "For me and for the reasons I have outlined, the life of the unborn is of great importance. And having tested these reasons with men and women of faith, and men and women of science, that I've decided not to oppose this bill.
In another 2006 Parliamentary conscience vote, Mr Rudd voted against legislation to expand embryonic stem cell research
Rudd and his family attend the Anglican church of St John the Baptist in Bulimba in his electorate. Although raised a Roman Catholic, Rudd began attending Anglican services in the 1980s with his wife. In December 2009, Rudd was spotted at a Catholic Mass to commemorate the canonisation of Mary MacKillop, in which he was administered with the Holy Communion. Rudd's actions provoked criticism and debate among both among political and religious circles. A report by The Australian quoted that Rudd embraced Anglicanism but at the same time did not formally renounce his Catholic faith.
Rudd is the mainstay of the parliamentary prayer group in Parliament House, Canberra. He is vocal about his Christianity and has given a number of prominent interviews to the Australian religious press on the topic. Rudd has defended church representatives engaging with policy debates, particularly with respect to WorkChoices legislation, climate change, global poverty, therapeutic cloning and asylum seekers. In an essay in The Monthly, he argued:
A truly Christian perspective on contemporary policy debates may not prevail. It must nonetheless be argued. And once heard, it must be weighed, together with other arguments from different philosophical traditions, in a fully contestable secular polity.
A Christian perspective, informed by a social gospel or Christian socialist tradition, should not be rejected contemptuously by secular politicians as if these views are an unwelcome intrusion into the political sphere. If the churches are barred from participating in the great debates about the values that ultimately underpin our society, our economy and our polity, then we have reached a very strange place indeed.
