Lentern
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- 2008
There is a line or sentiment that seems to be floating around which basically goes something like "You've changed Kevin, you used to be about the working families." This is obviously in light of his polling nosedive but I would suggest that this has less to do with a change in his style as opposed to a lack thereof.
If you got people to list their top five criticisms of Rudd; these lists would I suspect include a lot of "He lacks conviction" "He's too obsessed with popularity" "He doesn't get anything done." With the exception of the internet filter which is just perplexing politics, the major complaints aren't really about differences to Kevin 07. On the environment which people cite as the classic example of his gutlessness, Rudd was never a hero. Aside from Peter Garrett's short and jocular conversation, the ALP basically promised a continuity of Howard government approaches to the environment and the Green movement were livid about it. I remember in particular a Chaser mock Midnight Oil song accusing Garrett of selling out, a sentiment Bob Brown was echoing at every opportunity.
On the economy Rudd showed even less conviction, he ran away from Latham's criticism of private schooling and income tax cuts for the rich, instead telling anyone who'd listen that he was an economic conservative. Again a specific example I recall was Peter Costello making fun of the labor budger proposal which had a ten point, describing 9 points as copy the coalitions budget and the tenth point as changing the tax brackets which Kevin Rudd doesn't even know.
He came out strongly against workchoices I suppose but even still he distanced himself from Beazleys promise to "Rip up these laws" saying he'd review and amend them. During the Northern Territory Intervention the left blew up and Rudd stay silent, when Philip Ruddock ignored the federal courts ruling and ordered the detention of Mohammad Haneef Rudd refused to comment. My sister actually wrote to him about that issue and got a reply which basically said that "As we don't have all the facts that the government and the federal police have we feel it would be inappropriate to comment but we are monitoring the situation very closely".
The academic/weirdo style of rhetoric was also out and about. There is footage on youtube from the 2007 election campaign where he said on the 7:30 report, and I quote "He's gone whacko the diddlio and suddenly where over the line on that one." To again borrow a chaser reference when they were parodying the "No Gary No" nicotine ads they described Rudd as "A smug media slut".
Three years later, I would suggest, his popularity has collapsed because ultimately people wanted to know he was "safe" a few years ago and were willing to let him prove his "safeness". Having proved it some time ago they now want to know some positives instead of absence of negatives and he just keeps trying to play it safe. He also doesn't have a big scary, nasty right wing government to be the alternative to now and that was always going to lead to a growth in the Greens stature.
If you got people to list their top five criticisms of Rudd; these lists would I suspect include a lot of "He lacks conviction" "He's too obsessed with popularity" "He doesn't get anything done." With the exception of the internet filter which is just perplexing politics, the major complaints aren't really about differences to Kevin 07. On the environment which people cite as the classic example of his gutlessness, Rudd was never a hero. Aside from Peter Garrett's short and jocular conversation, the ALP basically promised a continuity of Howard government approaches to the environment and the Green movement were livid about it. I remember in particular a Chaser mock Midnight Oil song accusing Garrett of selling out, a sentiment Bob Brown was echoing at every opportunity.
On the economy Rudd showed even less conviction, he ran away from Latham's criticism of private schooling and income tax cuts for the rich, instead telling anyone who'd listen that he was an economic conservative. Again a specific example I recall was Peter Costello making fun of the labor budger proposal which had a ten point, describing 9 points as copy the coalitions budget and the tenth point as changing the tax brackets which Kevin Rudd doesn't even know.
He came out strongly against workchoices I suppose but even still he distanced himself from Beazleys promise to "Rip up these laws" saying he'd review and amend them. During the Northern Territory Intervention the left blew up and Rudd stay silent, when Philip Ruddock ignored the federal courts ruling and ordered the detention of Mohammad Haneef Rudd refused to comment. My sister actually wrote to him about that issue and got a reply which basically said that "As we don't have all the facts that the government and the federal police have we feel it would be inappropriate to comment but we are monitoring the situation very closely".
The academic/weirdo style of rhetoric was also out and about. There is footage on youtube from the 2007 election campaign where he said on the 7:30 report, and I quote "He's gone whacko the diddlio and suddenly where over the line on that one." To again borrow a chaser reference when they were parodying the "No Gary No" nicotine ads they described Rudd as "A smug media slut".
Three years later, I would suggest, his popularity has collapsed because ultimately people wanted to know he was "safe" a few years ago and were willing to let him prove his "safeness". Having proved it some time ago they now want to know some positives instead of absence of negatives and he just keeps trying to play it safe. He also doesn't have a big scary, nasty right wing government to be the alternative to now and that was always going to lead to a growth in the Greens stature.
