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Kevin Rudd |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 3 December 2007 |
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| Deputy | Julia Gillard |
| Preceded by | John Howard |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 4 December 2006 |
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| Preceded by | Kim Beazley |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 3 October 1998 |
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| Preceded by | Graeme McDougall |
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| Born | 21 September 1957 Nambour, Queensland, Australia |
| Political party | Australian Labor Party |
| Spouse | Thérèse Rein |
| Alma mater | Australian National University |
| Profession | Diplomat Civil servant |
| Website | PM.gov.au and KevinPM.com.au |
Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is the 26th and current Prime Minister of Australia and federal leader of the centre-left Australian Labor Party (ALP). Under Rudd's leadership, the Labor Party won the 2007 federal election on 24 November against the incumbent centre-right Liberal/National coalition government led by John Howard (see Howard Government). The Rudd Ministry was sworn in by the Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, on 3 December 2007.
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Rudd was born in Nambour, Queensland and grew up on a dairy farm in nearby Eumundi. 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.1 His father, a share farmer and Country Party member, died when Rudd was 11 and the family was compelled to leave the farm under hardship.2 Rudd joined the Australian Labor Party in 1972 at the age of 15.3 He boarded at Marist College Ashgrove in Brisbane4 and was dux of Nambour State High School in 1974.5
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 alias, Lù Kèwén (traditional Chinese: 陸克文 or in simplified Chinese: 陆克文).6
Rudd's thesis on Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng7 was supervised by Pierre Ryckmans, the eminent Belgian-Australian Sinologist.8 During his studies Rudd cleaned the house of political commentator Laurie Oakes to earn money.9 In 1980 he continued his Chinese studies at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan.10 Delivering the annual Gough Whitlam Lecture at Sydney University on "The Reforming Centre of Australian Politics" in 2008, Rudd praised the former Labor Prime Minister for implementing educational reforms, saying he was:
... a kid who lived Gough Whitlam's dream that every child should have a desk with a lamp on it where he or she could study. A kid whose mum told him after the 1972 election that it might just now be possible for the likes of him to go to university. A kid from the country of no particular means and of no political pedigree who could therefore dream that one day he could make a contribution to our national political life.11
In 1981, Rudd married Thérèse Rein whom he had met at a gathering of the Australian Student Christian Movement during his university years. They have three children: Jessica (born 1984), Nicholas (born 1986) and Marcus (born 1993).12
In 1981 Rudd joined the Department of Foreign Affairs, where he served until 1988. He and his wife spent most of the 1980s overseas posted at the Australian embassies in Stockholm, Sweden and later in Beijing, China.
Returning to Australia in 1988, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Labor Opposition Leader in Queensland, Wayne Goss. He became Chief of Staff to the Premier when the Labor party won office in 1989, a position he held until 1992, when Goss appointed him Director-General of the Office of Cabinet. In this position Rudd was arguably Queensland's most powerful bureaucrat.8 In this role he presided over a number of reforms including development of a national program for teaching foreign languages in schools. Rudd was influential in both promoting a policy of developing an Asian languages and cultures program which was unanimously accepted by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 1992 and later chaired a high level Working Group which provided the foundation of the strategy in its report, which is frequently cited as "the Rudd Report".13
During this time he underwent a cardiac valve transplant operation (Ross procedure), receiving a cadaveric aortic valve replacement for rheumatic heart disease.14
After the Goss government lost office in 1995, Rudd was hired as a Senior China Consultant by the accounting firm KPMG Australia. He held this position while unsuccessfully contesting the federal seat of Griffith at the 1996 federal election. He contested the seat again at the 1998 election and won.
Rudd made his first speech to the Australian House of Representatives on 11 November 1998.15 His most publicised local cause was opposition to a suggested parallel runway at Brisbane Airport, against which he organised one of Brisbane's largest public demonstrations, receiving massive media coverage. His commitment to the issue reduced when the airport altered its plans with the support of Queensland premier Peter Beattie, removing Rudd's constituency from projected flightpaths and, with the advice of the airport's 3PR adviser, renaming it a "staggered" runway, rendering the Rudd campaign's widely distributed "No Parallel Runway" posters out-of-date. The development received legally binding permission to proceed in 2007 under the Howard Government.
Rudd was promoted to the Opposition front bench following the 2001 election and appointed Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. In 2002 he met with British intelligence and helped define the position Labor would take in regards to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
There is no debate or dispute as to whether Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. He does. There's no dispute as whether he's in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. He is.16
After the fall of Saddam he would criticise the Howard Government over its support for the United States, while maintaining Labor's position of support for the Australian-American alliance.
Well, what Secretary Powell and the US seems to have said is that he now has grave doubts about the accuracy of the case he put to the United Nations about the claim that Iraq possessed biological weapons laboratories - the so-called mobile trailers. And here in Australia, that formed also part of the government's argument on the war. I think what it does is it adds to the fabric of how the Australian people were misled about the reasons for going to war.17
Rudd's policy experience and parliamentary performances during the Iraq war made him one of the better known members of the Labor front bench. When Opposition Leader Simon Crean was challenged by his predecessor Kim Beazley in June, Rudd did not publicly commit himself to either candidate.18 When Crean finally resigned in late November, Rudd was considered a possible candidate for the Labor leadership,19 however, he announced that he would not run in the leadership ballot, and would instead vote for Kim Beazley.
Rudd was predicted by some commentators to be demoted or moved as a result of his support for Beazley following the election of Mark Latham as Leader, but he retained his portfolio. Relations between Latham and Rudd deteriorated during 2004, especially after Latham made his pledge to withdraw all Australian forces from Iraq by Christmas 2004 without consulting Rudd.20 After Latham failed to win the October 2004 federal election, Rudd was again spoken of as a possible alternative leader. He retained his foreign affairs portfolio and disavowed any intention of challenging Latham.
When Latham suddenly resigned in January 2005, Rudd was visiting Indonesia and refused to say whether he would be a candidate for the Labor leadership.21 Such a candidacy would have required him to run against Beazley, his factional colleague. "The important thing for me to do is to consult with my colleagues in the party", he said.22 After returning from Indonesia, Rudd consulted with Labor MPs in Sydney and Melbourne and announced that he would not contest the leadership. Kim Beazley was subsequently elected leader.
In June 2005 Rudd was given expanded responsibilities as the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Security and, also, the Shadow Minister for Trade.
A November 2006 Newspoll opinion poll indicated voter support for Rudd was double that for Beazley.23 In December 2006, Beazley declared open the positions of Leader and Deputy leader of the Labor Party, and Rudd announced his candidacy for the leadership.2425 Fellow Labor MP Julia Gillard ran alongside Rudd for Deputy Leader. The vote took place on 4 December 2006. Rudd was elected Leader with 49 votes to Beazley's 39, and Gillard was elected unopposed as Deputy Leader.26
At his first press conference as leader, having thanked Beazley and former deputy leader Jenny Macklin, Rudd said he would offer a "new style of leadership", and would be an "alternative, not just an echo" of the Howard government. He outlined the areas of industrial relations, the war in Iraq, climate change, Australian federalism, social justice, and the future of Australia's manufacturing industry as major policy concerns. Rudd also stressed his long experience in state government, as a diplomat and also in business before entering federal politics.27
Rudd and the ALP soon overtook the government in both party and leadership polling. The new leader maintained a high media profile with major announcements on an "education revolution", federalism, climate change, a National Broadband Network and the domestic car industry.
Since 2002, Rudd appeared regularly in interviews and topical discussions on the popular breakfast television program Sunrise, along with federal Liberal MP Joe Hockey. This was credited with helping raise Rudd's public profile.28 Rudd and Hockey ended these appearances in April 2007 citing the increasing political pressures of an election year.29 On 21 October 2007 Rudd presented strongly in a televised debate against incumbent prime minister John Howard.30
On 19 August 2007, it was revealed that Rudd, with New York Post editor Col Allan and Labor backbencher Warren Snowdon, had briefly visited a strip club in New York in September 2003. When he realised it was a strip club, he left.31 The incident generated a lot of media coverage, but made no impact on Rudd's popularity in the polls.32 Indeed, some people believe that the incident may have enabled Rudd to appear "more human" and lifted his popularity.33
On the evening of 24 November 2007, some fifty weeks since Rudd became Labor leader, John Howard held a late night press conference conceding that the Coalition had lost the right to govern. Shortly afterwards, Rudd made his victory speech as Prime Minister-elect, saying he would "be a Prime Minister for all Australians."34 Labor's win was coined a 'Ruddslide' by the media and was underpinned by the considerable support from Rudd's home state of Queensland, with the state result recording a two party preferred swing of 7.53 percent.3536 The nationwide swing was 5.44 percent to Labor, the 3rd largest swing at a federal election since two party estimates began in 1949.
The next day, Rudd announced he and wife Thérèse Rein would live in The Lodge, the Prime Minister's official residence in Canberra, and only use Kirribilli House while on official business in Sydney.37 As foreshadowed during the election campaign, on 29 November Rudd directly chose his frontbench, breaking with more than a century of Labor tradition whereby the frontbench was chosen by party factions.3839
Kevin Rudd is only the second Queenslander to lead his party to a federal election victory, the first being Andrew Fisher almost a century earlier, in 1910 (although Fisher had first become Prime Minister in 1908 when the Alfred Deakin government resigned). Queenslanders Arthur Fadden (1941) and Frank Forde (1945) were also Prime Ministers, but only for a short period between elections - in Fadden's case the incumbent Robert Menzies resigned; in Forde's case the incumbent John Curtin died. Rudd is also the first Prime Minister since World War II not to come from either New South Wales or Victoria; the last were Curtin (Western Australia) and Forde (Queensland) in 1945.
Kevin Rudd is soon expected to be added to the Prime Minister's Avenue, a collection of busts of all Prime Ministers of Australia, located at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens in Ballarat, Victoria.40
On 3 December 2007, Rudd was sworn in as Prime Minister by the Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery.41 Rudd is the first Prime Minister to make no mention of the Queen in his oath of office.4243
Labor governs with 83 of the 150 lower house (House of Representatives) seats. In the upper house (Senate), Labor holds 32 of the 76 seats. An additional seven votes are required to pass legislation, from either the 32 Liberals, or from the crossbench of 12, made up of five Greens, four Nationals and one CLP, Family First's Steve Fielding, and independent Nick Xenophon.
Rudd's first official act, on his first day in office, was to sign the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.44
On 13 February 2008 Rudd fulfilled an election promise to apologise to Indigenous Australians for the stolen generations as the parliament's first order of business. The apology was well received,45 and most criticisms were of Labor for refusing to provide victims with monetary compensation.46 Rudd pledged the government to bridging the gap between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australian health, education and living conditions,47 with changes to the narrow48 negotiation process in resolving native title issues and transparency in indigenous spending.4950
WorkChoices, the industrial relations regime introduced by the Howard government, is being overhauled and replaced with a new national system.51 Some employers claim it puts the unions back on top, whilst some unions claim it to be "WorkChoices Lite". Some previous elements will be retained, however the most fundamental elements will be reversed.52
Rudd's cutbacks on public spending in state politics have flowed through, with a "five point plan" to combat the inflation problem Rudd said was "inherited from the previous Coalition government",53 with new training places to target skills shortages in various sectors, and a "razor gang" going through the budget looking for savings, with added pressures in the domestic and international economy. The target surplus of the national Gross domestic product was initially increased from 1.0 to 1.5 per cent.54555657 However, with the advent of the global financial crisis of 2008, the government changed its economic strategy from fighting inflation to stimulatory spending. This has cut the planned budget surplus and risks sending the budget into deficit as tax revenues decline.58
In response to continued degradation of the local and global economy due to the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent economic crisis of 2008, the Rudd government announced in October 2008 that it would guarantee all bank deposits. A number of large non-bank lenders, including mortgage funds, subsequently froze billions of dollars worth of deposits as investors sought to transfer their funds to the now guaranteed bank deposits. The government subsequently announced a premium would be required for deposits over $1 million.59 In the same month the government announced an economic stimulus plan worth $10.4 billion, with $4.8 billion to pensioners, $3.9 billion in support payments for families, $1.5 billion for first home buyers, and $187 million to create new training positions.60 In November 2008, the government announced an additional $6.25 billion government-funded assistance package to Australian car manufacturers.61
Plans are under way for the withdrawal of Australian military personnel from the Iraq War.62 In June 2008, Rudd ordered all 550 combat soldiers to return to Australia. This reduced Australian military personnel stationed in Iraq to number approximately 800, made up of diplomatic security personnel in Baghdad, sailors on board warships in the Persian Gulf, and Royal Australian Air Force crew. No final withdrawal date has been announced.63
In late January, Rudd announced funding for homeless persons, including $150 million in emergency accommodation.64
In February 2008 he announced the Australia 2020 Summit, held 19-20 April 2008, which brought together 1000 leading Australians to discuss ten areas the government saw as critical for Australia's future development.65
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 has increased proposed funding from $1.2 billion to $2 billion66, and will not mandate that a computer must be provided to each upper secondary student.67 Negotiations with the states are continuing.68
Newspoll polling in February 2008 saw Rudd achieve a "Preferred Prime Minister" rating of 70 percent, setting a new Newspoll record for any Prime Minister.69 March figures set another record, 73 to 7 percent. The two party preferred figure also set a Newspoll record, at 63 to 37 percent.70
Rudd announced that Quentin Bryce would become the first female Governor-General of Australia.
In April 2008 the Rudd Labor government proposed greater recognition of LGBT rights in Australia by announcing reforms to the recognition of same-sex relationships in taxation, health, employment, superannuation, aged care and other areas. Originally, 58 Commonwealth laws where gay couples faced discrimination were identified in HREOC's year-long inquiry, "Same-Sex: Same Entitlements Inquiry", which was tabled in Parliament in June 2007.71 A Rudd Labor government audit in early 2008 found around 100 Commonwealth laws where gay couples faced discrimination. These changes would not affect marriage, IVF access, and adoption rights.7273 The last of the legislation to remove said discrimination passed the Senate in November 2008.74
The first budget of the Rudd government, delivered by Treasurer Wayne Swan, saw spending cuts to "fight inflation", in response to the global events which sparked the financial crisis of 2007-2008, and subsequent economic crisis of 2008. Spending in the budget, as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), was lower than at any time of the Howard government.75 The projected surplus of $21.7 billion, the highest since 1999, was higher than expected, at 1.8 percent of GDP. Promised tax cuts were delivered, and three major investment funds were established - the infrastructure fund, "Building Australia", received $20 billion. Education received $10 billion as part of Rudd's "education revolution", while health also received $10 billion.767778
Under the Rudd government, skilled immigration under the 457 visa will dramatically increase, in what the government says are attempts to relieve skills shortages, lift productivity and prevent an inflationary wages breakout.79 However, due to the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, and subsequent economic crisis of 2008, the government has indicated that it may cut the number of immigrants allowed into the country if the global crisis raises unemployment levels.80
In May 2008 it was revealed that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship was rejecting asylum seeker applications at a higher rate than under the previous government, rejecting 41 of 42 applications, a denial rate of 97.6 percent according to Melbourne's Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.81 The minister responsible, Chris Evans, claims a denial rate of 77 percent, based on his acknowledgement that of a caseload of 730 appeals, he has intervened in 170.82
Announced in July 2008, Labor proposed changes to mandatory detention. Unauthorised arrivals in excised areas will still be subject to mandatory detention and processed offshore. However, unauthorised arrivals will have their cases reviewed every three months, be able to access legal advice and be able to apply for an independent review of adverse decisions. Children, and where possible their families, will not be detained. The process will be scrutinised by the Immigration Ombudsman.838485
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.86
Rudd is critical of free market economists such as Friedrich Hayek,87 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.88 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.8990
As shadow foreign minister, Rudd reformulated Labor's foreign policy in terms of "Three Pillars": engagement with the UN, engagement with Asia, and the US alliance.91
Although disagreeing with the original commitment to the Iraq War, Rudd supports the continued deployment of Australian troops in Iraq, but not the continued deployment of combat troops. Rudd, in his role as shadow foreign minister had written a letter in November 2003 to Prime Minister John Howard offering policy ideas after the fall of Baghdad. Among his recommendations were a deployment of trainers for the New Iraqi army, and using the Australian Electoral Commission to help Iraq stage elections.92 However, Labor pledged in 2007 to replace 550 existing combat troops with new troops serving training and border security roles (possibly stationed in other countries around the Middle East), with a continued presence of over 1,000 Australian troops stationed in Iraq (in 2007, there were 1,575 Australian military personnel operating within Iraq).93 Rudd is also in favour of Australia's military presence in Afghanistan.94
Rudd backs the road map for peace plan and defended Israel's actions during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, condemning Hezbollah and Hamas for violating Israeli territory.95
The Prime Minister also pledged support for East Timor stating that Australian troops will remain in East Timor for as long as East Timor's government wants them to.96
Rudd also gave his support for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia,97 before Australia officially recognised the republic.98 This decision sparked protests of the Serbian Australian community against Rudd.99
The question of Republicanism in Australia was raised following the failed 1999 referendum, and although Rudd is a republican, he has indicated that no referendum will take place in the near future.100
Rudd opposed certain aspects of the Howard government's WorkChoices industrial relations legislation, but indicated, during the 2007 election campaign, plans to retain other parts of it (including illegality of secondary boycotts, the right of employers to lock workers out, restriction of union right of entry to workplaces, and restrictions on workers' right to strike). Rudd's policy included the phasing out of Australian Workplace Agreements over a period of up to five years, the establishment of a simpler awards system as a safety net, the restoration of unfair dismissal laws for companies with under 100 employees (probation period of 12 months for companies with less than 15 employees), and the retention of the Australian Building and Construction Commission until 2010.101 Rudd also outlined the establishment of a single industrial relations bureaucracy called Fair Work Australia.102
On 3 December 2007, hours after being sworn in, Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol.103 Rudd stated that:
Australia's official declaration today that we will become a member of the Kyoto Protocol is a significant step forward in our country's efforts to fight climate change domestically - and with the international community.
In October, the then Prime Minister John Howard said that Labor's policy on climate change negotiations had no significant differences to the Liberals' policy. The Liberal policy was a 15 percent cut in emissions by 2020, whilst the Labor policy is a 20 percent cut in emissions by 2020.104
Rudd supports the construction of the Bell Bay Pulp Mill in the Tamar Valley, Tasmania, and has pledged not to protect old growth forests from further logging.105
Some commentators have described Rudd as a social conservative.106107 While moving to remove financial discrimination against LGBT couples, he has remained opposed to same-sex marriage:108
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.108
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. 109110
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.3 Like John Howard, Rudd has addressed congregations of the Hillsong Church.
"Personal faith also provides a compass point for my life. It also therefore helps shape the view I try to bring to the public space as well."108
Rudd is the mainstay of the parliamentary prayer group in Parliament House, Canberra.111 He is vocal about his Christianity and has given a number of prominent interviews to the Australian religious press on the topic.112 Rudd has defended church representatives engaging with policy debates, particularly with respect to WorkChoices legislation, climate change, global poverty, therapeutic cloning and asylum seekers.113 In an essay in The Monthly,114 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.
He cites Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a personal inspiration in this regard.115
In May 2008, Rudd was drawn into the controversy over photographic artist Bill Henson and his work depicting unclothed adolescents as part of a show due to open at an inner-city gallery in Sydney. In a televised interview, Rudd stated that he found the images "absolutely revolting"116117118 and that they had "no artistic merit".119 These views swiftly drew censure from members of the 'creative stream' who attended the recent 2020 Summit convened by Rudd, led by actor Cate Blanchett.120
