Reynard, I thought that Leak might have chosen that other round-headed kid with a dog, Charlie Brown. Concidentally, one of my kida taught himself to read with Tintin and Asterix books before starting school, so maybe Tinrudd will have a positive impact on declining literacy standards! Classics indeed.

James,

For heavens sake get your facts right. You said that there had been four changes of governemnt at an election since the war. In fact there were three, in 1949, 1983 and 1996. In 1975 you may remember that there had been a little bit of vice-regal displeasure on 11/11/1975, and that the government changed on that date, not at the election.

“Rudd would be best served by ignoring the suggestions of the removed elite, putting away the books, and learning a new discipline: communicating with the general Australian public.”

Kevin Rudd needs to start seeking out and listening very carefully to those who have the best overall perspectives on what needs to be done to stop Australia from accelerating on a downward spiral of quality of life issues.

He needs to listen to those with no vested interests in profit or political motives, who genuinely care about our future, such as Clive Hamilton, Tim Flannery, Ian Lowe, etc. And he needs to be very careful about the message from vested-interest big-business, political and economic mouthpieces.

He also needs to heed the message that just about everyone in the general community believes and freely expresses when they are guided in the right direction - the innate worry about environmental degradation and our ability to uphold a high quality of life with an obviously worsening environment around us.

And I’m talking about practically everyone’s innate feeling that high immigration and the continuous unending push for continuous unending growth is just completely bonkers, and is driven fairly and squarely by powerful vested-interest forces, with the aid of unscrupulous vested-interest short-term-thinking governments at all levels, and is fairly and squarely against our national interest in terms of the fundamental duty to protect quality of life and environment.

This is where Rudd’s great success potentially lies – with the forthright expression of big-picture environment and quality of life issues, and the embracement of the true heroes in this country and with the heartfelt concerns of the average constituent.

God knows the time is right to relegate the continuous growth paradigm to history and to embrace a stable sustainable society…..before it is too late. Rudd is in the prime position to be the most memorable leader in Australia for the next five hundred years if he takes up this challenge to initiate this change.

Rudd has the luxury of time - 11 months is a very long time in politics - and being a relative clean skin - even in light of "revelations" aboput Rudds form here, exposed in his time with Goss - none of that will worry the electorate at large. It has a very selective memory.

His biggest challenge wil be to forget he is a man of priciple, or at least thinks he is - principles have no longer a place in Australian politics

Sage, Thanks for that. I didn't know Manderines spoke or had a language :)
Faustino, yes i do wonder if Tin Tin comics have had a resurgence of popularity, and that little dog Snowy is a metaphor for something or someone I've yet to work out.

Wikipedia sez this about Tintin's character:

"Tintin has been cited as representing an everyman character, commentators noting his neutral manner, which is sometimes criticised as bland, as allowing balanced reflection of the evil, folly and foolhardiness."

Kinda sez it all think me.

The problem with Rudd, like every other Labor leader, is that he is beholden to old Labor policy, the factional system, and the old cronies that Labor just can't seem to shake. It was fine in the days when unions still held some power in Australia (i.e. the early to late 80's, when Hawke sold himself as a moderate who could bring together the unions and business), but nowadays any political party which is beholden to the union movement will not survive, since the old hoary values of unions are no longer congruent with normal aspirational Australians.

Kevin is falling into the same trap as Latham (even though he is approaching the trap from a different direction). While any Australian will grumble about the possible implications of WorkChoices and how terrible our pro-US policy is (because it's fashionable to do so), they will still vote for the government that has credibility when it comes to economic management. Also, the Australian public has always been cautious when it comes to 'intellectuals' (cf. John Hewson).