One of Kevin Rudd's strongest supporters has questioned the former prime minister's judgment, reportedly describing his election policies as cruel and idiotic.
The former Labor MP Maxine McKew, one of Mr Rudd's prize recruits who stole the seat of Bennelong from John Howard in the 2007 election, has written that the former prime minister was "off his game" in this year's election, according to a report in The Australian.
In a new chapter to her memoir – Tales from the Political Trenches – Ms McKew has reportedly written that Mr Rudd "went off the deep end" with some of his quick-fix policies in the 2013 election campaign.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/kevin-rudd-protege-maxine-mckew-turns-on-her-former-mentor-20131016-2vlh4.html#ixzz2hqX2Giye
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Dear Maxine
You're not a bad cookie. But you misread the political games being played... I have no idea why. You're an intelligent woman. Is it your entrenched Catholicism that permeates your views and seems to make them go towards the right Santamaria side of Labor politics? Is Bob Hogg from the right side of Labor politics?... I have no idea... But trust uncle Gus... Bringing back Rudd WAS A BAD IDEA... It may have saved a few Labor seats but I doubt it since there is no way we can compare. Kev said too much and went downhill from there... Had Labor been united behind Julia, Labor would have won the last elections and Mr Murdoch knew that... That's why he cultivated people like you to undermine Julia...
Rupert knows the game: things like a bit of ego massaging with some mistruth that sound glorious to make people like you, do things that are stupid on the long run... Take a few deep breaths... Don't do things on the hop....
You're a smart woman who unfortunately got conned by her own beliefs. You can do better...
a deserved public evisceration...
Former attorney general Nicola Roxon has unleashed on Kevin Rudd – contending he was a “bastard” who deserved the political bastardry inflicted on him by his Labor colleagues in 2010.
Roxon used the John Button lecture in Melbourne on Wednesday night to deliver an extraordinary public evisceration of Rudd, covering both his period as prime minister and the period he spent out of the leadership campaigning with caucus supporters to get it back.
The Kevin Rudd described by Roxon ran chaotic policy development processes, stifled cabinet collaboration and abused staff and senior officials – calling the then New South Wales premier Kristina Keneally “Bambi” behind her back.
She said Rudd had a “fatal attraction to everyone else’s problems” but displayed little inclination or aptitude for implementation. The former prime minister, Roxon said, was “great at the cut through and then struggled at the follow through”.
“Removing Kevin was an act of political bastardry, for sure, but this act of political bastardry was made possible only because Kevin had been such a bastard himself to too many people,” Roxon said in the lecture.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/16/nicola-roxon-says-kevin-rudd-was-a-bastard-who-deserved-his-removal
For those in the know, this bastardry was not so subtly exploited by the murdoch press to destroy the Labor Party far more than it deserved... And Mr Rudd obliged by being a bastard to Julia... Like Abbott, Rudd did not seem to care about the future of this fair country, only about his own advancement, possibly in the good old B A Santamaria political tradition... All those who were supporting him became part of a nasty revengeful clique of destroying shits.
No thank you Simon...