Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime Minister and thoroughly weird unit, has proved once again that he’s the king of communicating to the yewf.
Mr ‘Kevin 07’ himself decided to take part in a recent Reddit AMA, to promote his new autobiography, Not for the Faint-Hearted. It was illuminating stuff – basically, he thinks the NBN is shambles, the Murdoch media empire is evil, and Tony Abbott‘s a cunt.
Same old, same old.
But it’s his answers about his biggest regrets from his time in power – yes, plural answers – that prove where his head is really at.
All Aussies will remember that fateful day in 2010 when then Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard rolled Kevin, setting a new standard in Australian politics that would see the power move successfully play out two more times in the next five years.
The exact events of that leadership spill – and Rudd’s later rolling of Gillard – remain a mystery to this day. It’s been pored over in books, interviews, and explosive three-part documentaries, with both Rudd and Gillard offering contradictory accounts of what happened. (The only witness to the contested discussion, former Defence Minister John Faulkner, has repeatedly stated he’ll never repeat what happened in that room.)
Since losing the federal election to Abbott in 2013, Rudd’s hasn’t done much more than have a punt on a (failed) bid to be the UN Secretary-General, in part because he has a famously bad temper and would be hell to work for or with in any capacity.
And yet in spite of – or perhaps because of – all of this, Rudd remains the saltiest ex-politician this country’s ever seen.
When asked (twice) about his biggest regret in office, he said:
K-Rudd is a lot of things, but passive-aggressive emoji user is not one I’d ever thought I’d see.
🙂
