If there was ever any doubt that Canberra is essentially just Mean Girls in ill-fitting suits, Wayne Swan‘s upcoming memoir, in which he dishes the dirt on former friend and colleague Kevin Rudd, would appear to lay that to rest.
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald ran a lengthy extract from the book, entitled The Good Fight. The extract focuses on the Labor leadership spill of 2010, and is pretty ugly stuff.
Wayne ‘Cady’ Swan says that, over a period of more than 20 years, he and Kevin ‘Regina’ Rudd had been “the best and worst of friends”, but by the time of the spill, their relationship had irrevocably fallen apart, thanks to Rudd’s “vengeful” and “bizarre” antics.
In the early months of 2010 – possibly during a series of four-way phone calls – Swan says that he and Julia Gillard raised frequent concerns about Labor’s policy gridlock and Rudd’s “abrasive” personal style, and the Prime Minister did not take it very well.
“Kevin was prone to vengeful behaviour. Early in the life of the government, in late 2007 when we ministers were recruiting our personal staff, he sought to block us from recruiting anyone he believed had been instrumental in supporting Kim Beazley in the previous year’s leadership showdown. I experienced this first-hand with my own staff, but did not yield. Others were forced to do so.”
According to Swan, as Rudd began to see him as a “potential threat” for the leadership position, his behaviour became increasingly erratic. Then things started to go very wonky:
“There were also unreported incidents that can only be described as bizarre, the result of an unstable personality. At one point Kevin snapped a pen in a fit of anger in a regional hotel room and dark ink splattered all over the light-coloured décor. The damage bill was in the thousands and had to be settled privately.”
Swan then goes on to ping Rudd for his “pathological fear of leaks”, his “exceptionally poor” handling of cabinet meetings and his propensity for “micro-management” and wasting time in making important decisions. He really doesn’t hold back.
“The longer we governed, the more Kevin’s idiosyncratic style infected the way officials and staff interacted with him, his office and the cabinet (including its committees). He was intolerant of detailed advice, especially of a deep and highly technical nature – the kind that comes from public servants with decades of experience.”
His overall assessment of their time in government together?
“Where others would take great offence at his crudities, his lateness and his high-handedness, for me it was simply water off a duck’s back.”
Wow.
The extract ends on the day of Rudd’s resignation as Prime Minister, as Gillard assumed his job. The whole thing is compelling, car crash-worthy reading, and we can only imagine what the rest of the book, out next week, will be like.
Suffice to say, Rudd’s response will be entertaining.
Photo: Paul Kane via Getty Images
