The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

That is sad indeed...and such an awful day for it to happen.



I was just reading about Rudd, but gathered no idea of his politics...does anyone know which faction he is in?


He sounds pretty able, though.....knows lots about foreign policy and international affairs, has had heaps to do with China (in a private enterprise role), speaks Mandarin.......

Ok...he's a god botherer:


Kevin Rudd: The God Factor

Sunday May 8 2005
Summary:

Since Labor’s defeat in the last Federal Election they’ve been doing a fair bit of soul searching. Kevin Rudd, the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs thinks a lot of it has to do with the God Factor. He’s leading the charge for his Party to re-claim God for their constituency, but he risks his own career and losing the secular vote for his party.

Story:


Introduction:
Hello I'm Geraldine Doogue, welcome to Compass.
This week a new angle on the future of Australian politics.
Could faith become a major political force? Well that's what Labor's Kevin Rudd thinks. He claims that the conservatives have hijacked God for political purposes. Tonight we take a look at Kevin Rudd's agenda and the political battle going on for the hearts and minds of Christian voters.

Narrator:
Since losing the last Federal Election, the Australian Labor Party has been doing a fair bit of soul searching.
Kevin Rudd, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs thinks a lot of it relates to the God factor.

Man:
And here’s a question for you are you a Christian?

Kevin Rudd:
Wow, pretty direct. Yes I am.

Man:
We thought you were.

Narrator:
He’s leading a movement to re-claim God for the Labor Party.
He runs the risk of ridicule and derision.

Kevin Rudd on “Meet The Press”:
We will not for one moment stand idly by while the Liberals, the National Party or Family First assert that God has become some kind of wholly owned subsidiary of political conservatism in this country.

Narrator:
He also runs the risk of alienating Labor’s secular voters.

Marion Maddox – Author ‘God Under Howard:
The risk that the ALP runs is that there are probably many people, and who knows what proportion of the electorate that are just going to roll their eyes and say oh not more religion, why do we have to have religion brought in from any side.

Kevin Rudd:
Well there are heaps of risks. I mean in the caucus they’ll think that you’re some slightly besotted God botherer.

Julia Gillard:
I think people can joke about whether or not Kevin is a God botherer. But I think what Kevin’s trying to do is he’s trying to deal with a political issue.

Narrator:
So what lies behind Kevin Rudd’s current campaign? Is the God factor part of a genuine search for values or just a smart political move?
Religion is more visible now in Australian politics than for almost thirty years. During the last Federal Election an increasing number of Liberal politicians were seen openly extolling the virtues of Christianity and their commitment.
Peter Costello made a pre election visit to Hillsong, the largest Pentecostal church in the country, a Liberal MP in Perth said that people should vote for Howard on the basis that he was a Christian, and the Prime Minister himself used his end of year address in parliament to deliver a mini sermon on Christianity.

John Howard:
It remains the fact that the Christian religion is the greatest force for good and progress, and the dignity of the individual in this nation.

Marion Maddox:
If you look at the 2004 election, it was very clear that politicians on the conservative side were bringing out their religious credentials in a way that they just didn’t in any previous elections that I can remember.

Narrator:
And just days before the election the Liberals struck a preference deal with the Family First Party with it’s roots deep in the Assemblies of God Church, helping the government win at least four marginal seats.
So what is the Kevin Rudd strategy to meet this challenge? How does he plan to fix Labor’s so called Godless image? And what’s driven him to take issues of faith and values deep into Labor territory.

Prof John Warhurst:
It will have consequences for Kevin Rudd, both positive and negative.
But it’s also a bit of a risk in that he’s sticking his head up in a way where some other Labor politicians with also hold religious beliefs. Haven’t seen that as a very productive way to go.

Geraldine Doogue:
Kevin Rudd, you see the influence of religion as a growing problem for the ALP. Why so?

Kevin Rudd:
I think what we’ve seen in recent times is an increasing trend, both in the Liberal Party and other minor parties, to try and commandeer God for their own political purposes.
I think it’s time that those people who have a view of faith from the other side of politics actually spoke out and dealt with this challenge, and I’ve therefore got a responsibility and others of faith within our political tradition have got a responsibility to start speaking out, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

Geraldine Doogue:
Are you on a crusade?

Kevin Rudd:
No I’m not on a crusade. I’m doing what I think at this time in Australia’s political history is right. And that is to engage this debate about faith, values and politics and not to vacate the ground for the other mob. For those on the political right who believe that faith is their natural preserve. I don’t intend to stand around or let that happen. I’ve got a responsibility for the tradition of Christian politics that I come from......


Full Story Here



From Philosophy.com:

December 02, 2006
Kevin Rudd on neo-liberalism

In an article in the November issue of The Monthly Kevin Rudd says that Howard's political offensive against the Left known as the culture wars--one based on fear, anxiety and uncertainity---is a cover for the real battle of ideas in Australian politics. Rudd argues that the real battle of ideas in Australia is:
...the battle between free market fundamentalism and the social democratic belief that individual reward can be balanced with social responsibility...Howard's culture war, however, masks a deeper more unsettling reality: that socially conservative values at the core of Howard's cultural attack on the Left are in fact under seige from the forces of economic neo-liberalism that he himself has unreleashed from the Right. Whether it is "family values", the notion of "community service" or the emphasis on "tradition" in the history wars, "traditional conservative values" as being demolished by an unrestrained market capitalism that sweeps all before it.

Though I reject Rudd's dismissal of the culture wars as just a cover for the real battle of ideas, I do subscribe to Rudd's argument about the contradictions within the Right. He is right about this. The contradiction between conservatism and neo-liberalism is pretty obvious and it results in a movement away from liberalism. What's left is a market liberalism that celebrates a deregulated market. However, I do not accept that 'an unrestrained market capitalism that sweeps all before it' as Rudd claims. Another contradiction arises ---the Right's statist commitment to a big and centralized national security state. So what is on show is the movement away from classical liberalism.

Rudd acknowledges John Howard's account of these two strands but he says that Howard gives no analysis of how traditional social values of family, community and country are comptaible with the economic utlitarianism of the dereguated market whose ethos is one of unrestrained individualism. Consequently, Howard provides no philosophical framework for the Right's competing neo-liberal and conservative tendencies. Rudd then proceeds to explore such a framework. Responses by Andrew Norton here and here. As far as I know there have been few in the Australian bloggosphere who have engaged with Rudd's critique of neo-liberalism.

Rudd argues that Burkean (old style) conservatism, which sought to temper the excesses of market capitalism, capitulated to Hayek's critique of the 1950s (ie., Road to Serfdom) and the resurgence of neo-liberalism that was propounded by Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) and the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) as part of their critique of socialism and social democracy. Though these think tanks see themselves as working within the classic lliberal tradition---promoting values of free enterprise, minimal government and an open society of free individuals-- they have been deeply, both as a form of social insurance and an institutional corrective, against the inequalities caused by the free market.

As Rudd puts in his November lecture to the CIS Hayek's broader critique of socialism was directed at the idea of social justice, which he judged to be akin to:
the former "universal belief in witches or the philosopher's stone". Hayek's polemic against the left was an axiomatic component of his advocacy of a radical, neo-liberal alternative---one which argued the absolute centrality of the market; a role for the state as a protector of that market but little else besides; and apocalyptic warnings that any political interference with the integrity (even 'sanctity') of the market would place the entire national project on the "slippery slope" to totalitarianism.

Rudd relies on the work of David McKnight's Beyond Left and Right to argue that Hayek understands market morality in terms of evolutionary rules about private property, contract, exchange, comeptition etc; that we live in two the two moral spheres or orders of the market and the family and that the market order is based on self-interest whilst the obligations of the family order are based on love and altruism.

Rudd's critique is that 'the impact of neo-liberalism cannot be effectively quarantined from its effect on the family--and beyond the family to other sub-economic recipriocal relationships within communities and other social and spiritual organizations. ' Consequently, the bonds of respect, civility and trust between people are being weakened and relations based on competition self-interest and suspicion are growing. This is illustrated with the reforms to industrial relations in the form of the Workchoices legislation. Rudd says that as a result:
breadwinners are now at risk of working less predictible shifts, spread over a seven day week, not sensitive to weekends and possibly for take-home pay. The pressures on relationships, parenting and the cost and quality of childcare are without precedent.

This is how the market encroaches on the non-market life-world of families. Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at December 2, 2006 04:32 PM



From Here



http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Rudd-to-end-suspense-tomorrow/2005/01/23/1106415441552.html

Mainly bumpf, little vision in this article





Wikipedia on our boy.......


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Rudd





Rudd on China/Australian relations over the next 25 years



Rudd on Latham on Rudd:

Rudd dismisses Latham diaries as fiction PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
AM - Thursday, 15 September , 2005 08:04:00
Reporter: Alexandra Kirk
TONY EASTLEY: Labor's Foreign Affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd has been singled out by Mark Latham for special criticism.

Mr Rudd is labelled 'Heavy Kevvie' by Mister Latham and described as a terrible piece of work who is owned, quote, "lock stock and barrel" by the United States.

"Never listen to Rudd on foreign policy," Mr Latham says.

Well, Mr Rudd is in New York for the leaders summit there, and he's speaking here to AM's Alexandra Kirk.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Kevin Rudd, Mark Latham says you're a terrible piece of work, addicted to the media and leaking. He's dubbed you King of the Caveats, who never writes anything, a junior minister at best, that he'd make you Minister for the Pacific Islands.

How do you react?

KEVIN RUDD: Alex, I just think it's a pretty sad day for everybody, Mark included, when a former leader of our party behaves in this sort of way.

It's not just a spray against me, it's a spray against everybody - Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating, Kim Beazley, me, others. I mean, I think Mark's actually forgotten how much loyalty and support he got from people right across our show.

In that period when he was leader he got unprecedented levels of support and I think maybe it's the bitterness of having just lost the election campaign and then having to leave the leadership, but he seems to only have one script now, which is to lash out. I think it's all pretty sad.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: But are you hurt by his very cutting criticisms of you?

KEVIN RUDD: Look, Alex, I think it's no secret in Canberra that Mark's never seen me as his number one pin-up boy in Canberra - that's been the case for a long, long time. But you know something? The stuff that he went on about, about my mother's death is just beyond the pale......


Continues here

And Beazley wasn't? Rudd actually had a job (several in fact) how many pollies have always been pollies - JH didn't even leave home till he was 33.

And how joyful was I to hear Rudd say 'I'd remind the Australian people that under John Howard as treasurer interest rates reached 22%'

It's about time the public understood that labour did the hard yards in the 80s and 90s and set up the prosperity howard claims he manufactured. I also loved his poopooing the 'family values' line used by howard saying that the new IR legislation, and JH's proposed changes, push family down the list of priorities for workers.

I can live with his godbothering if it makes him a decent person - because I know JH isn't.

I'm starting to think they couldn't have manufactured a better candidate to woo disenchanted lib voters away. Think about it; christian, small business owner, hardnosed public servant, foreign affairs nouse, long time marriage with kids, non-threatening. And most important of all, a queenslander - if labour can pick up seats in queensland...

It's interesting that I had no idea that he was a god-botherer until the 7:30 Report, last night. But then sincere, ordinary Christians have never really bothered me ... It's the ones with fiery missions to make us just like them & hidden agendas that do. And I doubt he is one of those.

Watched his interview on the 7:30 Report last night & thought: Yes, he has got an alternative vision for Oz! Delivered in a slightly stilted way (nervous? But he had good reason!), but it's there. The ALP can present something different to the voters. Something more decent & something that appeals to ordinary Australians.

I was interested in how he made mince-meat of JH's supposed concern for "family values" on AM this morning. What sort of family life can you have when workers (family members, afterall!) are at the total mercy of bosses under the IR laws? It was refreshing to hear a Canberra politician actually see workers as real people & not just cogs in the wheels of "The Economy". Hey, we're entitled to some sort of decent life, some fairness of treatment, work is not our only function in this country!

About being a "silvertail". I can't see that, myself. A nerdish, bookish person , perhaps. Or that is the way he could be perceived. But Rudd did not exactly get an easy ride to where he is now. He grew up on a diary farm, lost his father at an early age. Life was a struggle, but he got ahead because he was intelligent, ambitious & possibly because he had faith (of the religious sort). Though that's unknown territory to me.

Another thing that struck me, watching the mini 7:30 Report biography is that he's had some shocking haircuts in his time! Stylish he's not.

So I've been thinking today: the ALP can do much worse than Kevin Rudd in 2006. (& I love the idea of Julia as a balance to all that earnestness & bookishness!) I was delighted to hear that some federal politicians broke with factional allegiances to vote for the Rudd/Gillard team. That is the most positive thing I've heard about the ALP for yonks! Even more delighted to hear that there is going to be a shake-up of the shadow cabinet not based on factional deals! (Rudd is unaligned) This is the healthiest thing for the ALP & the country in ages. Now let's see what they do with it.

"I don't want Australia's future to be just Japan's quarry or China's beach ..."

I like that!


.... & the bit about withdrawing Australia's soldiers from southern Iraq.



So far so good!

He mentioned in the first press conference that no member of his family had ever "darkened the door of a university" and that it was federal Labor's policies in the seventies that enabled him to do so. That should strike a chord. Howard wants to prevent working class people from gaining an education to provide a steady stream of "lessers" to service the desires of the elite.

Yes, he mentioned that last night, too, Wilso. Gough's education policies did wonders for many not-so-wealthy-but-intelligent folk! Seems like "the good ol' days", doesn't it?

... which leads me to wonder if there'll be any changes to Labor's policies on education funding to the extremely wealthy, elite private schools. I actually thought that Latham was quite right on that one, though the outraged responses (from the wealthy, elite schools! ) were quite deafening at the time. Poor government schools, they've received such a raw deal from the Libs, & Labor lacks the courage to tackle the issue, fearing voter back-lash.

I hope so. We've been paying to much to spoiled rich brats for too long.

It's just that so many government schools are seriously cash-strapped, Wilso, not so much to have a go at the wealthy. In most countries private education is privately funded, yet here the argument seems to be that if you pay taxes you're entitled to have any choice of school subsidized by the government. I find it deeply offensive that schools with the very best facilities, plus hefty fees from their "clients", should cream off so much of the federal education budget .... when there are other schools that are genuinely unable to supply all the basic essentials. (I've worked in one of these schools for the past couple of years) The students enrolled in these schools are, of course, from poorer families & even if they do well, despite the odds, could they possibly afford the HECs fees for their choice of tertiary education? That's what Rudd was getting at in his interview. If it wasn't for the Whitlam government's education priorities he'd probably never have gotten the education he's received. Think of all the bright, poorer students who are unable to pursue a tertiary education now, without getting themselves into massive debt.

Not to mention a survey from Victoria that showed university students who were publicly educated are significantly more successful at university than those from private education.

I think the gist of the report (if we're talking about the same one) was that, once at university, public school students actually did better, compared to private school students enrolled at universities. This doesn't surprise me, though. I mean, most public school students would not have had the degree of support, the tutors, the fantastic facilities that many of the wealthier private schools have. So they'd have to be pretty resourceful & would often be much more self-reliant than their private counterparts. I know many students who have won university places without any support what-so-ever from their families. Anyway, they'd have to be pretty focused & determined to get as far as they have & this would actually be an advantage when undertaking a more independent type of learning than secondary school.

Sorry to divert the thread to education advantage & disadvantage. It's all Kevin Rudd's fault! :wink:

There are rumours Vanstone is going to be pushed off the front bench - only about 10 years too late....

Why not Ruddock, too?

Good point.

Too right it is!

Where?

She was dropped before, you know.


But, dammit, the woman is a "wet" Liberal! Prolly the best we'll get in the immigration portfolio from the Libs.

I have it on good authority that she has been way more reasonable than the arsehole who preceded her.

My preferred Liberal "wets" are Petro Georgio, Judy Moylan & co. They are what I call brave!

It's hardly difficult to be more reasonable than Ruddock, but Immigration remains very accident prone under Amanda.

I'm stunned to learn Vanstone's a wet! Everyone I know who's had personal contact with her despises her.