Mark Latham
Opposition Leader of Australia Elections: 2004
In office 2 December 2003 – 18 January 2005
Preceded by	Simon Crean
Succeeded by	Kim Beazley
Constituency	Werriwa
Personal details
Born	(1961-02-28) 28 February 1961 (age 51) Ashcroft, New South Wales
Political party	Australian Labor Party (1987-2005)
Spouse(s)	Janine Lacey
Children	2
Alma mater	University of Sydney
Religion	Agnostic[1]

Mark William Latham (born 28 February 1961), an author and former Australian politician, was leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005.

Latham captured national attention and, initially, high levels of public approval with his policies and unconventional approach, but also attracted controversy surrounding his past. In the October 2004 federal election, Latham was defeated by then-incumbent Prime Minister John Howard. Deteriorating relations with his party and ill health saw him resign as Leader on 18 January 2005.^[2]

In September 2005, Latham released The Latham Diaries, in which he attacked many of his former colleagues and members of the media, as well as condemning the general state of political life in Australia. He has since published A Conga Line of Suckholes, a regular column in the Australian Financial Review and Spectator Australia and an essay for The Monthly.

Early career[link]

Latham was born in Ashcroft, a suburb of south-western Sydney in New South Wales. He was educated at the Hurlstone Agricultural High School, where he was dux, and at the University of Sydney, where he graduated with a degree in economics. He worked at the Green Valley Hotel for 2 years. He was also a research assistant to the former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam, which included working on the latter's book The Whitlam Government.

In 1987 he was elected to the City Council of Liverpool, in Sydney's south-west, and was mayor from 1991 to 1994. Latham played rugby union with the Liverpool Bulls club and had a stint as its president. He has also been a fan of St George Dragons rugby league club since 1968.^[3]

Latham's term as mayor saw radical changes introduced to the council, with large spending on public works, to be paid for by a combination of loans and efficiencies achieved from outsourcing many council services. The public works, including libraries, a pedestrian mall and public art, have been highly praised in accounts of the period.

In an article in Quarterly Essay (issue 15), journalist Margaret Simons, who conducted an extensive investigation of the period, concluded that there were real issues in the financial management of the council. These mostly related to the drafting of the outsourcing agreements. Simons also said most of the allegations come from council members who were sacked for incompetence by the state government.

On 1 June 2004, Latham told Parliament that during his time as mayor he had reduced Liverpool's debt-servicing ratio from 17 to 10 percent, which he said was less than half of western Sydney's average. He also said Liverpool had adopted a debt-retirement strategy that he claimed would have made it debt free by 2005, but which was not implemented by his successors. Councillor Colin Harrington, whom Latham defeated during the mayoral elections of 1991, later said these figures were not accurate. He said the average debt-servicing ratio for western Sydney was 12.1 percent and he said the council's financial staff could find no significant reference to the debt-retirement strategy.

Member of Parliament[link]

In January 1994 Latham was elected at a by-election to the House of Representatives for the Sydney seat of Werriwa, which had been Gough Whitlam's seat from 1952 to 1978.^[4] He was elected to the Opposition front bench after Labor lost the 1996 election, and became shadow minister for education. After the 1998 election he resigned from the front bench following a policy dispute with the opposition leader, Kim Beazley. The two became political enemies following this incident.

The views expressed in Civilising Global Capital(see below) alienated him from many Labor traditionalists, but his aggressive parliamentary style won him many admirers. He once referred to Prime Minister John Howard as an "arselicker" and to the Liberal Party frontbench as a "conga line of suckholes".^[5] He also described U.S. President George W. Bush as "the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory".^[6]

On politics, Latham commented in 2002: "I'm a hater. Part of the tribalness of politics is to really dislike the other side with intensity. And the more I see of them the more I hate them. I hate their negativity. I hate their narrowness. I hate the way, for instance, John Howard tries to appeal to suburban values when I know that he hasn't got any real answers to the problems and challenges we face. I hate the phoniness of that".^[7]

Leader of the Opposition[link]

Latham was a strong supporter of Kim Beazley's successor Simon Crean, defending the leader against his critics within the party. He called Crean's principal frontbench detractors, Stephen Smith, Stephen Conroy and Wayne Swan "the three roosters". When Crean resigned the Labor leadership, Latham contested the ballot for leader against Beazley. On 2 December 2003, less than 10 years after entering Parliament, Latham won the vote for the leadership by 47 votes to 45. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard were early contenders for the leadership, but both withdrew in favour of Beazley and Latham respectively. At age 42, Latham became the youngest leader of the federal parliamentary Labor Party since its first leader Chris Watson, who became leader at age 33 in 1901. In his first press conference as leader, Latham championed his belief in a "ladder of opportunity" that would bring prosperity to all Australians.

Mark Latham with former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, unveiling a plaque to commemorate the centenary of the first Australian federal Labor government, Melbourne, April 2004

The Howard government targeted Latham's brash personality and his colourful past. Howard characterised him as "Mr Flip-Flop", referring to a character in a children's book. Peter Costello attempted to damage Latham's economic credentials by referring to the experimental economic ideas that he had put forward as shadow treasurer, such as abolishing negative gearing and replacing the GST with a Progressive Expenditure Tax. Frequent references were made to Latham's temper; he was alleged to have broken a taxi-driver's arm in a scuffle arising from a fare dispute.^[8] However, Latham was uncharacteristically calm in the face of these attacks, surprising many members of the media.

On winning the leadership, Latham moved swiftly to heal the rifts in the Labor Party and to moderate his abrasive image. He appointed his predecessor, Simon Crean, as shadow treasurer, while also retaining a number of Kim Beazley's supporters in senior positions. In July 2004 Beazley himself was re-elected to the ALP front bench as Shadow Minister for Defence.

Latham gave a promise not to use the kind of "crude" language he had employed in the past. He and the party's foreign affairs spokesperson, Kevin Rudd, met the United States ambassador, Tom Schieffer, to stress Labor's continuing support for the Australian–American alliance.

In January 2004 the Labor Party national conference was held in Sydney. During the conference Latham received very positive media coverage and introduced his plans for early childhood literacy. He introduced an unusual campaign style, choosing to focus on "values" issues, such as reading to children and economic relief for middle-class Australia, which he termed with the political slogan ease the squeeze.

Latham also put forward plans to reform the education and health systems. In contrast to the intense stagecrafting of Latham's image at the conference, he boosted his profile by means of loosely organised "town hall"-style direct meetings around the country. By March, Labor had taken the lead over the Coalition in the opinion polls, and Latham had a higher personal approval rating than any opposition leader since Bob Hawke in 1983. Commentators began to discuss the serious possibility that Latham could be Prime Minister by the end of the year.

In March, following the Spanish elections at which the pro-American People's Party government was defeated, Latham sparked a new controversy by committing a Labor government to withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq by Christmas. At that time, Australia had about 850 troops in Iraq, mostly involved in patrol work and in training members of the new Iraqi defence forces. Howard accused Latham of a "cut and run" approach and said "it’s not the Australian way not to stay the distance".^[9]

2004 election campaign[link]

Latham with mentor, former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, at an election fundraiser in Melbourne, September 2004

Until March 2004, Labor under Latham's leadership held a strong lead in national opinion polls. Latham's commitment to withdraw from Iraq caused a sharp drop in Labor's lead, but following the revelations of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison, Labor's lead increased again, suggesting that support for involvement in Iraq had declined, undermining Howard's position.

In June 2004, Labor's "troops home by Christmas" policy came under fire from U.S. President George W. Bush who, at a White House press conference during Howard's visit to Washington DC, described it as "disastrous". Bush's comments raised controversy in Australia over whether Bush was interfering in Australia's domestic political affairs, whether the election of a Latham government would endanger the U.S. alliance, and whether the comments were made with Howard's prior knowledge.^[10]

Shortly afterwards, Latham announced the recruitment of Peter Garrett, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and former lead singer with the rock band Midnight Oil, as a Labor candidate in Kingsford Smith, a safe Sydney electorate being vacated by the retiring former minister Laurie Brereton. Garrett revealed that he had been approached months before by senior ALP figures, including John Faulkner and Kim Beazley, and had taken this long to make up his mind.^[11]

Most commentators regarded his recruitment as a high-risk tactic, seeing the potential advantage to Labor of Garrett's popularity among young people as being offset by the possibility that his record of radical and anti-American statements in the past would offend moderate voters.

The second coup scored by Latham was the announcement that he would abolish the generous superannuation schemes available to members of parliament; his plan was quickly adopted by the Howard government in the face of a rising wave of public support.

Other announced policies and initiatives included: the introduction of federal government parenting classes for those parents deemed to be failing to adequately discipline their children; a ban on food and drink advertising during children's television viewing hours; the introduction of a national youth mentoring program; the government distribution of free story books to the families of newborn children; a federal ban on plastic shopping bags; and the introduction of legislation to prohibit vilification on the basis of religious beliefs or sexual orientation, similar to laws adopted in the state of Victoria that some critics said had led to a restriction of free speech. Some of these initiatives prompted Howard to criticise Latham as a "behavioural policeman".

The Liberal-National coalition focused heavily on Latham's inexperience during the campaign (in Australia, yellow "L-plates" are attached to cars driven by learner drivers).

In July 2004, Latham again became the centre of controversy when it was alleged on a commercial television network that he had punched a political rival during his time on Liverpool Council. Latham strongly denied the accusation. On 6 July 2004, he called a press conference and denounced the government for maintaining what he called a "dirt unit," which he said was gathering personal material about him, including details of his first marriage. The government denied that any such unit existed, but some observers speculated that Liberal Party researchers had accumulated more potentially embarrassing material about Latham, which would be used during the election campaign (a threat which never eventuated), in addition to claims that Latham was an inexperienced economic manager.

Between March and August, Latham's position in the opinion polls gradually declined, leading to renewed speculation that Howard would call an early election. During August, Labor claimed a tactical victory over the government on the issue of the Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement and there were allegations in a Senate inquiry that Howard had lied about the "Children Overboard Affair" during the 2001 election campaign. By mid-August, Labor was again ahead in all three national opinion polls. On 18 August, however, Latham was admitted to a Sydney hospital, where he was diagnosed with pancreatitis.

The election was held on 9 October 2004. Although opinion polls showed the ALP leading the government at various stages of the six-week campaign, the government was re-elected with an increased majority. This was despite Latham being generally credited with a strong performance and a victory in the sole campaign debate. In the days after the election, Latham was criticised for releasing many key policies too late, a case in point being Labor's policy regarding conservation of Tasmanian old growth forests.

Among those critical of Latham were journalists Tom Allard and Mark Metherell, who said "the flurry of releases meant Mr Latham went off message from Labor's core strengths of health and education." Labor's party president, Carmen Lawrence, blamed the unexpected severity of the defeat on an effective Coalition "scare campaign" focused on Latham's limited economic management experience, and the alleged threat of a rise in interest rates under Labor, which was not effectively countered, reportedly in an attempt by Tim Gartrell to conserve funds for later in the campaign (where, in previous years, Labor had been outspent by the Liberals).

Gartrell also apparently failed to anticipate the interest rates scare campaign.^[12] The inability of his campaign to counter the Liberal campaign would later be cited by Latham himself, in the Latham Diaries, as a key reason for the election loss.^[13] Latham wrote that he had told his wife Janine that "I've tried to carry the whole show on my shoulders: my family, my community, my party. But now I'm stuffed. I have collapsed under the weight of those fucking ads".^[14] Michael Costello, a former chief of staff to Kim Beazley, said: "This is a complete train wreck. We now face at least two terms before we can win government again. We face at least three years with John Howard pretty much in control of the Senate."

On the morning of 8 October, the day before the election, a television crew filmed Latham and Howard shaking hands as they crossed paths outside an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio studio in Sydney. The footage showed Latham appearing to draw Howard towards him and tower over his shorter opponent. The incident received wide media coverage and, while Latham claimed to have been attempting to get revenge for Howard squeezing his wife's hand too hard at a press function, it was variously reported as being "aggressive", "bullying" and "intimidating" on the part of Latham. The Liberal Party campaign director, Brian Loughnane, later said this incident generated more feedback to Liberal headquarters than anything else during the six-week campaign, and that it "brought together all the doubts and hesitations that people had about Mark Latham". Latham disputes the impact of this incident, however, having described it as a "Tory gee-up: we got close to each other, sure, but otherwise it was a regulation man's handshake. It's silly to say it cost us votes – my numbers spiked in the last night of our polling."^[15] According to Latham's account of events, Latham came in close to Howard for the handshake to prevent Howard shaking with his arm rather than his wrist.

Latham became the first Labor opposition leader since Frank Tudor in 1917 to fail to make a net gain in seats from the government at his first election.^[16] Some commentators, including Kim Beazley, said Latham's leadership had rescued Labor from a much heavier defeat.^[17] Beazley said polling a year before the election indicated the ALP would lose "25–30 seats" in the House of Representatives. Instead the party lost a net four seats in the lower house, a swing of 0.21% and there was a 1.1% swing to the ALP in the Senate.

Leadership tensions[link]

Labor's defeat led to media criticisms of Latham's personal style and policy priorities, and also to a crisis in confidence in his leadership within the Labor caucus. Several prominent members of the front-bench, notably John Faulkner, Lindsay Tanner and Bob McMullan, chose not to recontest front-bench positions. McMullan made it clear he was unhappy with Latham's leadership style and gave an interview suggesting there would be a leadership challenge early in 2005. The national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, Bill Shorten, was also highly critical of Latham.

In December, after Latham was incorrectly reported to have blamed Labor's state premiers for the defeat, an unnamed Labor frontbencher predicted a leadership challenge within the next few months, saying Latham's supporters had lost confidence in him. Latham also had a heated public confrontation with the Labor deputy leader in the Senate, Stephen Conroy, renewing speculation there would be a challenge to Latham's leadership in the new year.

Latham was helped by the fact that there was no obvious successor to the leadership. The most likely candidates, Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Stephen Smith, accepted senior positions on Latham's frontbench and pledged loyalty to him. The leaders of the Socialist Left faction, and the centre-left under Martin Ferguson and Julia Gillard, also maintained their support for him. There was little support for a return to Beazley, and neither Tanner nor McMullan were seen as viable leadership candidates. In the longer run, however, many commentators doubted Latham would survive until the 2007 election after such a heavy defeat.

The final crisis for Latham's leadership erupted in the aftermath of the December tsunami. With both Latham and his deputy leader, Jenny Macklin, on leave, the acting opposition leader, Senator Chris Evans, issued statements in the aftermath of the tsunami. Latham was criticised for not issuing a statement as leader personally, particularly at a time when John Howard expressed national sympathy over the disaster, pledged $1 billion in aid to Indonesia and declared a national day of mourning. Latham rejected the criticism of his non-appearance after the tragedy, saying "none of my verbiage could make any practical difference – bring back the dead, reverse the waves, organise the relief effort". Macklin issued a statement on the disaster on 30 December before also choosing to take leave.

Several days later, Latham said he had been ordered to rest as a result of a recurrence of his pancreatitis. It was subsequently alleged that during the period of his illness he had been seen in a resort resting with his family. Latham's colleagues in turn became increasingly angry over his failure to communicate with them or to release a full statement about his health. Opinion polls in January showed a sharp decline in Latham's support and a preference for the return of Beazley as Labor leader.

Departure from politics[link]

On 18 January 2005 citing life-threatening illness and family concerns, Latham announced his resignation from the Labor Party leadership and from Parliament. He strongly criticised the media for invading his family's privacy during his illness. Latham had been federal Labor leader for 13 months, the shortest tenure since Billy Hughes was expelled from the party in 1916. Latham was only the second federal Labor leader, after Matthew Charlton in 1928, to leave politics without ever having held ministerial office.

Political journalist Mungo MacCallum wrote: "Latham became leader too early in his career, he lacked the skills needed to deal with the webs of intrigue within his own party, he refused to massage the media and the advisers he did listen to were out of their depth against Howard's praetorian guard. But he had many qualities that were not only desirable and attractive but are in short supply in today's ALP. In other circumstances he could have developed into a formidable leader, even prime minister. As it is, he remains one of the great what-ifs."

Publications[link]

Although Latham wrote Civilising Global Capital while he was an MP, most of his works have been written after his parliamentary career.

Civilising Global Capital[link]

Whilst on the backbench of Parliament in the late 1990s, Latham published Civilising Global Capital: New Thinking for Australian Labor (Allen and Unwin, 1998), in which he argued that Labor needed to abandon many of its traditional policies and embrace the aspirational values (home ownership, higher education) of the upwardly-mobile skilled working class and small business class. His policies as the leader of the Labor Party were largely derived from the stance taken in this book, which ideologically is described as 'the third way'.

Biography[link]

Latham's biography Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy, by Bernard Lagan, was launched on 29 June 2005 by Senator John Faulkner, published by Allen & Unwin. The book caused furore within Labor ranks. Most of this was due to material contained within a single email written by Latham in the last page of the book. Of Kim Beazley's return to the leadership, Latham said: "Labor got the leader it truly deserves – it is well suited to a conservative stand-for-nothing type of leader". Latham also criticised state Labor premiers Bob Carr, Peter Beattie and Geoff Gallop, calling them "A-grade arseholes".^[18] Union leader Bill Shorten remarked that Latham had displayed "all the attributes of a dog except loyalty".^[19]

Of his election loss, Latham wrote: "I had my shot at being prime minister. It didn't work out on several fronts. But life goes on, potentially in a splendid way, spending so much time with my family. After suffering testicular cancer, the greatest gift in my life has been the ability to have children with Janine. I would be a fool to waste it".

[edit] The Latham Diaries

Soon after his retirement, Latham announced his decision to publish a selection of diary entries spanning almost a decade. Following a bidding war, it was announced that Melbourne University Press (MUP) would publish the Diaries in late September. MUP later awarded the exclusivity rights for extracts to News Ltd and the exclusivity for the first^[20] interview to the ABC television program Enough Rope, which was due to be broadcast at 9.30pm on Monday 19 September 2005.

Meanwhile, excerpts of the Diaries were published by The Australian from 15 September ahead of their publication in book form on 19 September. The excerpts published include attacks by Latham on the ALP, his successor Kim Beazley, frontbencher Kevin Rudd and former Labor prime ministers Paul Keating and Gough Whitlam.^[21]

Due to the publicity the Diaries were now generating, the extensive amount of published extracts, and concerns that Latham had recorded other interviews, in particular with another ABC program, Lateline, Enough Rope pushed to have the interview broadcast four days early on Thursday 15 September at 8.30pm with a simultaneous broadcast on some ABC radio stations. However, when the time came to broadcast, the ABC announced that the interview would not be shown due to a legal injunction sought by News Limited (owner of The Australian), which had the rights to publish extracts from the Diaries. Reports on the night said any broadcast by the ABC was a breach of confidentiality between News and the book's publisher, MUP, the newspaper publisher having signed to an A$80,000 deal to publish excerpts of the book in the weekend newspapers. However, at 10.30pm, the ABC aired the Denton interview after the Supreme Court of New South Wales lifted the injunction. Justice Harry Palmer said the publication of large parts of the book in News Limited newspapers largely destroyed the value of the material. Due to the last-minute changes, the edition of ABC's Lateline program scheduled for 10.30pm featuring another interview with Latham (also subject to the short-lived injunction) was aired the following night.^[22]

The Diaries represent a remarkable and unprecedented statement by a former leader of a major political party. In the book, Latham is scathing about Australia's political system: "It takes committed people ... and turns them into one-dimensional robots ... The only good news is that the public is on to them. The electorate has worked out the artificiality of it all. They can see through the spin doctors, the publicity stunts, the polling and the tricks of marginal-seat campaigning. This is why people now talk about politics with a cool anger. They have a clear feeling that the system is far from genuine. That the robots, in fact, are tin men".^[23]

A Conga Line of Suckholes[link]

Latham's seventh book, a collection of quotations titled A Conga Line of Suckholes, was released by Melbourne University Publishing in late September 2006.^[24]

No Exit The ALP[link]

In November 2010, Latham contributed an essay in The Monthly titled No Exit The ALP.^[25] In it, Latham again criticised the ALP, writing that "for all the heightened rhetoric, for the seemingly endless creation of summits, committees and policy review processes, the lasting impression from the Rudd years is one of emptiness". Latham also remarked that "Without a guiding philosophy of politics, Rudd’s prime ministership was an exercise in populism. He avoided tough decisions and mastered the art of media manipulation as a way of extending his honeymoon", before concluding that Labor had "lost its way". Latham's suggested solution is that Labor again champions great causes, writing that:

Having studied the literature and, at one time, been part of these debates, I can identify just three credible ideas that have been advanced for the renewal of the social democratic project. Each seeks to move beyond economic issues, beyond the material realm of politics, to stake out new ground. The first tries to reclaim social capital, the rebuilding of mutualism and community, as a Labor icon. The second positions Labor as an anti-establishment party, breaking down the entrenched centres of power in society. The third champions a crusade on climate change, an uncompromising attempt to roll back the materialism of western society in favour of environmental values.

Latham finishes his essay by writing about the difficulties of each approach.

Post-political life[link]

Apology from Jeff Kennett[link]

Jeff Kennett, a former Liberal premier of Victoria who became a national depression awareness advocate for beyondblue, weighed into the debate. Kennett said Latham's erratic behaviour, which contributed to his political downfall, was symptomatic of a bipolar disorder – extreme mood swings caused by depression. Latham contacted Kennett, saying the statement offended and hurt him and his family, and demanded an apology, which Kennett quickly gave through The Age newspaper in Melbourne.^[26]

Melbourne University Lecture[link]

Latham gave his first public lecture since the release of the Diaries, titled "Ten Reasons Why Young Idealistic People Should Forget About Organised Politics", on 27 September 2005, at Melbourne University. The reserved-seating lecture was filled to capacity, an extraordinary occurrence. During the lecture he argued that organised politics is ineffective at achieving real social change, due to public apathy, the rise of conservatism and the inward-focused structure of the major parties, and instead encouraged youth to focus on more grassroots, community-based programs. He also claimed politics has a detrimental impact on health, happiness and family life, largely blaming the "arrogant" and "incompetent" media, as well as internal party struggles.^[27]

Incident at Hungry Jack's[link]

On 19 January 2006, Latham was eating with his two sons at a Hungry Jack's restaurant in Campbelltown, New South Wales when he was photographed by Ross Schultz, a photographer from The Daily Telegraph. Schultz alleged that Latham snatched the camera and smashed it, without destroying the electronic media that contained the photographs. It was reported that Latham called Schultz a paedophile, presumably because he thought Schultz had taken pictures of his sons. The Telegraph subsequently announced plans for upcoming publication of the photographic images in the following Saturday's edition and that it would be seeking $12,000 from Latham to replace the equipment.^[28] The following day, Latham appeared to drive towards a Channel 7 television cameraman at his Sydney home. The photographer was unhurt but Seven's head of news in Sydney, Chris Willis, said the footage clearly showed Latham's car veer toward the cameraman as he stood on the side of the road.^[28] In February 2006, Latham was charged with assault, malicious damage and theft in relation to the incident. Latham did not appear in Campbelltown Local Court to face the charges, on 22 March, instead giving a lecture to political science students at the Australian National University. When asked by a student how he could blame everyone else but himself, Latham replied: "I'm sorry I didn't come in here and expose myself as a miserable arsewipe".^[29] On 26 April, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Latham again chose not to appear in Campbelltown Local Court in relation to 19 January incident. The case was adjourned to 24 May.^[30] On 6 June, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Latham escaped having a criminal conviction for malicious damage to the camera being used by Schultz recorded against him, but had been placed on a good behaviour bond for two years. After pleading guilty to malicious damage, he had the charges of assault and theft dropped.^[31] He was also required to pay $6,763.70 in compensation for the damaged camera.^[32]

The Sun Herald reported on 13 August 2006 that the family were moving from their Glen Alpine home to a property at Mount Hunter, near Camden.^[33]

2007 federal election[link]

He commented on the 2007 federal election campaign with an article in the Australian Financial Review, in which he said Australia was having a "Seinfeld election, a show about nothing". Latham wrote that no matter which party won, Australia would have a conservative economic policy and a decentralised, productivity-based industrial relations system. Australian public life had reached the "zenith of policy convergence". "Many people in the Labor movement are expecting Labor in power to be far more progressive than its stated election promises. I expect a Labor administration to be even more timid, more conservative," he wrote.^[34]

2010 federal election[link]

In 2010, Latham was a guest reporter for television show 60 Minutes where he reported on the federal election campaign. It was here that during a report he confronted Julia Gillard. Latham pushed his way through the crowd and confronted Gillard and her partner, Tim Mathieson, saying: "I understand you have made a complaint about me working for Channel 9".^[35] Gillard replied "I don't know anything about that, Mark, if you want to work with Channel 9 that's a matter for you", before Latham suggested that Kevin Rudd had been behind the leaks against her during the campaign.

He also caused a stir when on television he urged voters to issue a protest vote by leaving the ballot paper blank on election day. "They say that voting in Australia is compulsory, but it's not compulsory to fill out the ballot paper. You can put it in the ballot box, totally blank. That's what I'll be doing on Saturday and I urge you to do the same. It's the ultimate protest vote." he said on 60 Minutes.^[36][37] Following that interview, he continued to attack Gillard as well as journalist Laurie Oakes.^[38]

Quotations[link]

New Political Correctness speech to House of Representatives, 26 August 2002

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Duffy, Michael (2004), Latham and Abbott. The lives and rivalry of the two finest politicians of their generation, Random House Australia, Milsons Point (NSW). ISBN 1-74051-318-5
• Lagan, Bernard (2005), Loner. Inside a Labor Tragedy, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, New South Wales. ISBN 1-74114-515-5
• Latham, Mark (1998), Civilising global capital: new thinking for Australian Labor, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, New South Wales. ISBN 1-86448-668-6
• Latham, Mark (2001), What did you learn today? : creating an education revolution, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, New South Wales. ISBN 1-86508-478-6
• Latham, Mark (2002), Wedge politics and the culture war in Australia, Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King's College, University of London, London, England. ISBN 1-85507-123-1
• Latham, Mark (2003), From the Suburbs: Building a Nation from Our Neighbourhoods, Pluto Press, Annandale, New South Wales. ISBN 1-86403-189-1
• Latham, Mark (2005), The Latham Diaries, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria. ISBN 0-522-85215-7
• Latham, Mark (2006), A conga line of suckholes: Mark Latham's book of quotations, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Victoria. ISBN 0-522-85305-6
• McGregor, Craig (2004), Australian Son: Inside Mark Latham, Pluto Press, North Melbourne Victoria. ISBN 1-86403-288-X

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mark Latham

• Abraham, Matt (9 July 2004). Howard's toughest interview of the year. Crikey.com.au
• Allard, Tom; & Metherell, Mark (11 October 2004). Late release of policy cost Latham the Lodge. The Sydney Morning Herald.
• A fair dinkum Labor hero (4 December 2003). The Economist.
• Ill health ends Latham's career. NEWS.com.au.
• Latham quits (18 January 2005). ABC News Online.
• Mark Latham's concession of the 2004 Australian election
• Latham diaries have 'fantastic bile'
• First part of two part expose of Latham's personal life in Sydney Morning Herald
• Second part of two part expose of Latham's personal life in Sydney Morning Herald
• Labor's rebranded leader (BBC)
• August 2002%3BSEQ_NUM:99%3B New Political Correctness speech by Mark Latham to House of Representatives 26 August 2002 (Transcript)Text

Chris Kenny is a retired American soccer defender who played professionally in the North American Soccer League and Major Indoor Soccer League.

Youth[link]

Kenny graduated from McCluer High School. He attended Florissant Valley Community College where he was a 1981 junior college soccer All American.^[1] He then transferred to St. Louis University where he was a 1983 Second Team All American soccer player.^[2] He was inducted into the Billikens Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995.^[3]

Professional[link]

In October 1983, the Los Angeles Lazers selected Kenny with the second overall pick of the 1983 Major Indoor Soccer League draft.^[4] He signed with the Chicago Sting of the North American Soccer League, playing for them in during the 1983-1984 NASL indoor season. He then saw time in four games during the 1984 NASL outdoor season as the Sting won the league championship. The team released him in November 1984.^[5] He then signed with the St. Louis Steamers where he saw time in seven games during the 1985-1986 MISL season. During the 1988 off season, Kenny moved to the Kansas City Comets.

References[link]

External links[link]

• NASL/MISL stats

The Honourable Kevin Rudd MP
26th Prime Minister of Australia
In office 3 December 2007 – 24 June 2010
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Governor General	Michael Jeffery Quentin Bryce
Deputy	Julia Gillard
Preceded by	John Howard
Succeeded by	Julia Gillard
Minister for Foreign Affairs
In office 14 September 2010 – 22 February 2012
Prime Minister	Julia Gillard
Preceded by	Stephen Smith
Succeeded by	Bob Carr
Leader of the Australian Labor Party
In office 4 December 2006 – 24 June 2010
Deputy	Julia Gillard
Preceded by	Kim Beazley
Succeeded by	Julia Gillard
Member of the Australian Parliament for Griffith
Incumbent
Assumed office 3 October 1998
Preceded by	Graeme McDougall
Personal details
Born	Kevin Michael Rudd (1957-09-21) 21 September 1957 (age 54) Nambour, Queensland, Australia
Political party	Labor Party
Spouse(s)	Thérèse Rein
Children	3
Alma mater	Australian National University
Religion	Christianity[1][2]
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Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He also served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2012. A member of the Australian Labor Party, Rudd has served in 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 the leader of the Labor party and Leader of the Opposition; 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.

On 22 February 2012, Rudd unexpectedly announced his resignation as Foreign Minister, following speculation about a possible leadership spill.^[3] On 23 February, Julia Gillard announced there would be a ballot for the leadership on 27 February, at which she would be standing again. On 24 February, Rudd also announced his candidature.^[4] In the ballot, Gillard beat Rudd by 71 votes to 31.

Early life and family[link]

Rudd was born in Nambour, Queensland to Albert and Margaret (née DeVere) Rudd, and grew up on a dairy farm in nearby Eumundi.^[5] 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.^[6] 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.^[7] When Rudd was 11, his father, a share farmer and Country Party member, died. 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.^[8] Rudd joined the Australian Labor Party in 1972 at the age of 15.^[9] He boarded at Marist College Ashgrove in Brisbane^[10] 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."^[6] 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^[6] and was dux of Nambour State High School in 1974.^[11] His future Treasurer Wayne Swan attended the same school at the same time, although they did not know each other as Swan was three years ahead.^[11] 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.^[12] His paternal fourth 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.^[13]

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 (Chinese: 陸克文 or in simplified Chinese: 陆克文).^[14]

Rudd's thesis on Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng^[15] was supervised by Pierre Ryckmans, the eminent Belgian-Australian sinologist.^[16] During his studies Rudd did housecleaning for political commentator Laurie Oakes to earn extra money.^[17] In 1980 he continued his Chinese studies at the Mandarin Training Center of National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan. Delivering the 2008 Gough Whitlam Lecture at Sydney University on The Reforming Centre of Australian Politics, 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.^[18]

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).^[19] Rudd's nephew, Van Thanh Rudd is a Melbourne-based artist and activist.

Entry into politics[link]

Rudd joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1981, and served there until 1988. He and his wife spent most of the 1980s overseas posted at the Australian embassies in Stockholm, Sweden, and later in Beijing, People's Republic of 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.^[16] 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".^[20]

During this time he underwent a cardiac valve transplant operation (Ross procedure), receiving a cadaveric aortic valve replacement for rheumatic heart disease.^{[21][dead link]}

The Goss government nearly lost its majority in 1995 before losing it altogether in a 1996 by-election. After Goss' resignation, Rudd was hired as a Senior China Consultant by the accounting firm KPMG Australia. While in this position, he won the Labor preselection for the Brisbane-area seat of Griffith at the 1996 federal election. Despite being endorsed by the retiring Labor MP, Ben Humphreys,^[22] Rudd was considerably hampered by Labor's unpopularity in Queensland, as well as a redistribution that almost halved Labor's majority. Rudd was defeated by Liberal Graeme McDougall on the eighth count as Labor was cut down to only two seats in Queensland in a massive swing. Rudd sought a rematch against McDougall in the 1998 election and won on the fifth count.

Member of Parliament[link]

Rudd made his first speech to the Australian House of Representatives on 11 November 1998.^[23]

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs: 2001–2005[link]

Kevin Rudd in November 2005

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.^[24]

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.^[25]

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.^[26] When Crean finally resigned in late November, Rudd was considered a possible candidate for the Labor leadership,^[27] 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.^[28] 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.^[29] 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.^[30] 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.

Leader of the Opposition[link]

Kevin Rudd (right) and Julia Gillard (left) at their first press conference as Leader and Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party, 4 December 2006

A November 2006 Newspoll opinion poll indicated voter support for Rudd was double that for Beazley.^[31] 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.^[32][33] Fellow Labor MP Julia Gillard ran alongside Rudd for Deputy Leader against Jenny Macklin. The vote took place on 4 December 2006. Rudd was elected Leader with 49 votes to Beazley's 39. Gillard was elected unopposed as Deputy Leader after Macklin withdrew from the ballot.^[34]

Two party preferred polling during the last term of the Howard government; Rudd became Labor leader in December 2006.

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 and also as a diplomat and in business before entering federal politics.^[35]

Labour Day 2007. From left to right: Anna Bligh (then Deputy Premier of Queensland), Rudd's son Nicholas, Kevin Rudd and Grace Grace (then General Secretary of the Queensland Council of Unions).

Rudd and the Labor Party 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",^[36] federalism,^[37] climate change,^[38] a National Broadband Network, ^[39] and the domestic car industry.

In March 2007 the government raised questions over a series of meetings Rudd had had with former West Australian Labor Premier Brian Burke during 2005, alleging that Rudd had been attempting to use Burke's influence to become Labor leader (after losing office, Burke had spent time in prison before returning to politics as a lobbyist).^[40] Rudd said that this had not been the purpose of the three meetings and said that they had been arranged by his colleague Graham Edwards, the Member for Cowan.^[41]

From 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.^[42] Rudd and Hockey ended the appearances in April 2007 citing the increasing political pressures of an election year.^[43]

On 19 August 2007, it was revealed that Rudd, while on a visit to New York as opposition foreign affairs spokesman, had visited a strip club in September 2003, with New York Post editor Col Allan and Labor backbencher Warren Snowdon. By way of explanation, Rudd said: "I had had too much to drink, I have no recollection (nor does Mr Snowdon) of any incident occurring at the nightclub – or of being asked to leave". "It is our recollection that we left within about an hour".^[44] The incident generated a lot of media coverage, but made no impact on Rudd's popularity in the polls.^[45] Some believe the incident may have enabled Rudd to appear "more human" and lifted his popularity.^[46]

2007 election victory[link]

Kevin Rudd campaigning with Kerry Rea in Bonner on 21 September 2007

Electoral writs were issued for an Australian federal election on 17 October 2007.

On 21 October 2007, Rudd presented strongly in a televised debate against incumbent prime minister John Howard.^[47]

On 14 November 2007, Kevin Rudd officially launched the Labor Party's election campaign with a policy of fiscal restraint, usually considered the electoral strength of the opposing Liberal party. Rudd proposed Labor spending measures totalling $2.3 billion, contrasting them to $9.4 billion Rudd claimed the Liberals had promised, declaring: "Today, I am saying loud and clear that this sort of reckless spending must stop."^[48][49]

The election was held on 24 November 2007. 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.^[50] The nationwide swing was 5.44 percent to Labor, the 3rd largest swing at a federal election since two party estimates began in 1949.

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 elected by the Labor caucus, with the leader then given the right to allocate portfolios.^[51][52]

Prime Minister[link]

On 3 December 2007, Rudd was sworn in as Prime Minister by the Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery.^[53] Rudd was the first Prime Minister to make no mention of the Monarch in his oath of office.^[54]

Two party preferred polling during the term of the Rudd government. See also: Australian federal election, 2010#Polling.

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.^[55]

During their first two years in office, Rudd and his government set records for popularity in Newspoll polling.^[56]

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.^[57]

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 criticised 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’.^[58]

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.^[59][60]

Environment[link]

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.^[61] On 3 December 2007, as his first official act after being sworn in, Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol.^[62] On 15 December 2008, Rudd released a White Paper on reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.^[63] 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.^[63] The White Paper was criticised by the Federal Government's climate change advisor, Professor Ross Garnaut.^[64] 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 ...")^[65] 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.^[66][67]

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.^[68][69][70] Many of Rudd's minor climate change initiatives were scrapped or slashed by Julia Gillard.^[71]. However he did implement an expanded mandatory renewable energy target with coalition support.^[72]

Iraq War[link]

In accordance with a Multinational Force Iraq agreement with the new Iraqi Government,^[73] Labor's plan to withdraw the Australian Defence Force "combat" contingent was completed on 28 July 2009, three days ahead of the deadline.^[74] In mid-2010, there were about 65 ADF personnel remaining in Iraq supporting UN operations or the Australian Embassy.^[75]

Afghanistan War[link]

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.^[76]

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.^[77] 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."^[78] 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.^[79]

The United States diplomatic cables leak reported Rudd's criticisms of Australia's European allies in the Afghanistan campaign.

Domestic policies[link]

Parliamentary apology to the Stolen Generations[link]

Kevin Rudd on television in Federation Square, Melbourne, apologising to the stolen generations.

As the parliament's first order of business, on 13 February 2008, Rudd read an apology directed to Indigenous Australians for the stolen generations. The apology, for the policies of successive parliaments and governments, passed unanimously as a motion by both houses of parliament.^[80] Rudd pledged the government to bridging the gap between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australian health, education and living conditions, and in a way that respects their rights to self-determination.^[81] During meetings held in December 2007 and March 2008 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) adopted six targets to improve the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians over the next five to twenty years. As of late 2011, data on changes since 2008 in relation to most of these targets was not yet available.^[82]

Industrial relations[link]

WorkChoices, the industrial relations regime introduced by the Howard government, was overhauled.^[83] Rudd's 2007 policy included the phasing out of Australian Workplace Agreements over a period of 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. It retained the illegality of secondary boycotts, the right of employers to lock workers out, restriction of a union right of entry to workplaces, and restrictions on workers' right to strike.^[84] Rudd also established a single industrial relations bureaucracy called Fair Work Australia, designed to play a far more interventionist role than the Howard Government's Fair Pay Commission.^[85] Fair Work Australia mediated the 2011 Qantas industrial disputes.

Economy[link]

Kevin Rudd (back row, fourth from right) at the G-20 Leaders Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy.

See also: 2008 Australian federal budget, 2009 Australian federal budget

In his first speech to parliament, Rudd affirmed his general belief in competitive markets, while repudiating Thatcherism and supporting the Third Way.^[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]

Upon election to office, the Rudd government announced a five point plan to combat inflation.^[89] The first budget of the Rudd government was delivered by Treasurer Wayne Swan in May 2008 and a projected surplus of $21.7 billion was announced.^[90] As the global recession began to take hold, the Government guaranteed bank deposits and announced two stimulatory spending packages.^[91] The first was worth $10.4 billion and announced in late 2008,^[92] and the second worth $42 billion was announced in February 2009 and included $900 dollar cash payments to resident taxpayers who paid net tax in the 2007–08 financial year.^[93] After initially raising interest rates to combat inflation, The Reserve Bank cut official interest rates several times in increments of up to 1 percent, and fell to 3 percent in May 2009, the lowest since 1960.^[94] The second budget, released in May 2009, projected a $57.6 billion deficit for 2009–10. The majority of the deficit was created by a loss of taxation revenue as a result of the recession, with the rest made up in stimulus and other spending. The downturn was expected to remove $210 billion in taxation revenue from the budget over the next four years.^[95]

Following the start of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, increased exports and consumer spending helped the Australian economy avoid recession in 2009. Australia was the only western economy to do so.^[96]

In early 2009,^[97] in the wake of the global financial crisis,^[98] Rudd stated "that the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed", and that "Neo-liberalism and the free-market fundamentalism it has produced has been revealed as little more than personal greed dressed up as an economic philosophy. And, ironically, it now falls to social democracy to prevent liberal capitalism from cannibalising itself." Rudd called for a new era of "social capitalism" from social democrats such as himself and U.S. President Barack Obama to "support a global financial system that properly balances private incentive with public responsibility".^[99]

As part of its economic stimulus program, the government offered householders a rebate for ceiling insulation. Rudd demoted Peter Garrett, the minister responsible for the program, before abandoning the program altogether in 2010 after the scheme was blamed for house fires and 4 deaths.^[100] The Building the Education Revolution program sought to stimulate the nationwide economy by employing construction workers in school building developments, but came under media scrutiny following allegations of overpricing and bad value for money.^[101]

The Rudd Government's third budget in 2010 projected a $40.8 billion deficit for 2010–11^[102] but forecast that Australia would return to surplus by 2012–13. The government proposed a "super profits" tax on the mining industry and included $12 billion in revenue from the proposal in the forecast, although the tax had not been passed by the Senate.^[103]

Australia 2020 Summit[link]

In February 2008 Rudd announced the Australia 2020 Summit, held from 19–20 April 2008, which brought together 1000 leading Australians to discuss ten major areas of policy innovation.^[104] Among the initiatives supported at the event, the summit voted in favour of a plebiscite on Australia "relinquishing ties" to the United Kingdom followed by a referendum on the model for an Australian republic,^[105] a bill of rights, the re-formation of an Indigenous peak representative body similar to ATSIC, (which had been abolished by the Howard Government), the introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme, and a review of the taxation system.^[106]

Findings released in April 2009 reported that nine out of the 1000 submitted ideas were to be immediately enacted and that the government was deliberating on other ideas proposed.^[107] By mid-2010, among the key reform ideas suggested, Prime Minister Rudd had sought to introduce an ETS, but postponed it after failing to secure passage through the senate;^[108] formed a consultative committee on a Bill of Rights then rejected its recommendation for implementation;^[109] established the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples in 2010;^[110] commissioned the Henry Review of taxation (on the basis of which the Rudd Government proposed a new "super-profits" tax on mining);^[111] and Rudd had described the issue of a vote on a republic as not being "a priority".^[112]

Education[link]

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,^[113] and did not mandate that a computer be provided to each upper secondary student.^[114] The program supplied office software, photo and video editing software, and web design software, some of it unusable due to the hardware becoming obsolete.^[115]

Immigration[link]

As Prime Minister, Rudd professed his belief in a "Big Australia",^[116] while his government increased the immigration quota after to around 300,000 people.^[117] In 2010, Rudd appointed Tony Burke as population minister to examine population goals.^[118]

In 2008, the government adjusted the mandatory detention policies established by the Keating and Howard governments and declared an end to the Pacific Solution.^[119] 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".^[120] 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.^[121] 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.^[122]

Taxation[link]

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.^[111][123] 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.^[124] 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.^[125]

Healthcare[link]

Rudd announced a significant and far-reaching strategic reform to Australian healthcare in 2010.^[126] 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.^[127][128]

Political positions[link]

Nationhood and foreign policy[link]

Rudd (left) and US President George W. Bush (right) meet at APEC Australia 2007 in Sydney.

Rudd (left) and US President Barack Obama (right) meet in Washington DC.

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.^[129]

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 was also in favour of Australia's military presence in Afghanistan.^[130]

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.^[131]

As Prime Minister, he also pledged support for East Timor, stating that Australian troops would remain in East Timor for as long as East Timor's government wanted them to.^[132]

Rudd also gave his support for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia,^[133] before Australia officially recognised the republic.^[134] This decision sparked protests of the Serbian Australian community against Rudd.^[135]

In 2008 Rudd recommended the appointment of Quentin Bryce as the first female Governor-General of Australia to Queen Elizabeth II.

Society and religion[link]

Some commentators have described Rudd as a social conservative.^[136][137] While moving to remove financial discrimination against LGBT couples, he has remained opposed to same-sex marriage:^[138]

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.^[138]

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. "^[139]

In another 2006 Parliamentary conscience vote, Mr Rudd voted against legislation to expand embryonic stem cell research^[140]

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.^[9] 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.^[141] A report by The Australian quoted that Rudd embraced Anglicanism but at the same time did not formally renounce his Catholic faith.^[142]

Rudd is the mainstay of the parliamentary prayer group in Parliament House, Canberra.^[143] He is vocal about his Christianity and has given a number of prominent interviews to the Australian religious press on the topic.^[144] Rudd has defended church representatives engaging with policy debates, particularly with respect to WorkChoices legislation, climate change, global poverty, therapeutic cloning and asylum seekers.^[145] In an essay in The Monthly,^[145] 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.^[146]

In May 2008, Rudd was drawn into the controversy over photographic artist Bill Henson and his work depicting naked 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"^[147] and that they had "no artistic merit".^[148] 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.^[149]

When in Canberra, Rudd and Rein worship at St John the Baptist Church, Reid, where they were married.^[6] Rudd often does a "door stop" interview for the media when leaving the church yard.^[150]

Removal as Prime Minister[link]

Leadership challenge and resignation[link]

Bronze bust of Kevin Rudd at the Prime Minister's Avenue at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens.

On 23 June 2010, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Rudd's chief of staff, Alister Jordan, had talked to over half the Labor caucus to gauge the level of Rudd's support within the party. This followed significant media speculation that his deputy, Julia Gillard, would attempt a leadership challenge.^[151] Late that evening, after it became clear he had lost the support of key factional leaders, Rudd announced that a leadership ballot would take place between himself and Gillard on 24 June, which he would be contesting.^[152] At the meeting, it was clear that Gillard had the numbers to win and Rudd opted not to contest, stepping down as both party leader and Prime Minister.^[153] Rudd was not included in Gillard's reshuffled ministry, though she committed to appoint him to a senior cabinet position if the Labor Party was re-elected.^[154]

Following the leadership challenge, Bill Shorten, the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services and key Parliamentary member of the Labor Party's Right faction, nominated the government's handling of the insulation program; the sudden announcement of change of policy on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme; and the way in which they had "introduced the debate" about the Resource Super Profits Tax as the key considerations which had led to a collapse in support for Rudd's leadership of the party.^{[155][156][157][158][159][160]}

Barry Cohen, a former minister in the Hawke government, said that many in the Labor party caucus felt ignored by Rudd's centralist leadership style, and his at times insulting and rude treatment of staff and other ministers. Many were willing to overlook this due to his immense popularity, but when Rudd's poll numbers began to drop in late 2009 and 2010, they wanted to install a leader more able to establish consensus and involve the party caucus as a whole.^[161] Rudd is the first Australian Prime Minister to be removed from office by his own party during his first term.^[162]

2010 campaign[link]