So Kevin is really an arrogant, bullying, foul mouthed, foul tempered, shallow individual with no firm beliefs except in himself , a chameleon who will present himself in any way, say or do anything to win.
No one's perfect.

qualifier: but I'll vote for him cos its better than having a lying rodent infest our national reputation for another term.

Communicat please try to use other than the standard Howard insults against Rudd.
Unions had a great deal more power and members when Hawk and Keating ruled.
Unions did not in any way control them.
Rudd in fact right now has taken a great deal of his and the party's promises away from unions, even some degree of true fairness in my view.
His bringing the few who put themselves and workers in general into line is not just an election ploy.
Rudd knows such radical actions are not going to be excepted in the future.
However while I think a better way exists for a union official to get better results I ask why the cameras?
Was it planned to get a man known for his heated exchanges hot under the collar?
What was said to him of camera?
The lie that Rudd is driven by the unions is just not working and just a lie.
He however will return the Aussie fair go to IR 12 months after he enters the lodge you will agree.

Funny thing about the lying rodent is that most of us appear to feel fairly safe to say bad things about him without worrying that we might suddenly qualify for a tax audit.

I wonder if Rudd will keep his need to control in close or will the arms of government be seconded to make sure that critics find it's not worth the effort. Time will tell but I don't think that Rudd will be leading a charge to a more open and accountable government. I doubt that we will see critics holding senior roles in the government.

I suspect that a lot of matters will pass through cabinet (or whatever the federal mechanism is) to avoid FOI.

The spin will be slick, dissenters silenced and after a while the decade of the lying rodent will seem like the good old days of open and accountable government.

But then Rudd may prove me wrong. There is certainly some space for him to better than those who are there now have done.

R0bert

This is most definitely a 'lesser of two evils' argument.

One of my biggest problems with Rudd is that he's too much like Howard - on various dimensions. Mind you, this is undoubtedly one of Rudd's greatest electoral assets.

Most relevant to this debate is the fact that they're both ambitious control freaks - although this is not necessarily a bad thing for a political leader, IMHO. On the other hand, I won't be voting for Rudd - rather I'll be voting for a regime change.

Given where I live, I'm going to give my first preference vote to the Greens candidate, even though I personally am singularly unimpressed with him. When his few hundred votes exhaust, my second preference will go to the Labor candidate (who I don't think has been announced yet). After that, I'll list the other candidates randomly, but ensuring that the Nationals bench warmer has my last preference. He'll undoubtedly romp back in on 67% of the primary vote.

With any luck Bruce will be sitting on the Opposition back bench next year :) The Senate is another question...

Where do ya start with this guy.

The whole fiasco with the conflict of interest regarding his wife's company. He couldnt admit obvious conflict re possibility of preferential treatment if govt. depts dealt with her employment agency. She only admitted grappling with the conflict... when she got pinched. Or the blatant use of IR legislation he's been slagging off.

Rudd then changed the subject to gender politics... he'd never tell independent spouse what to do. haha. On ABC radio, the back peddling interview went a bit longer than commercial media and Rudds wife said, he'd be sleeping on the couch if he tried to tell her otherwise. How 1950s is that attitude. Oh, the irony. He just stood there in the TV footage, with a silly scolded little naughty boy look on his face. Very prime ministerial old boy. Cant even lead on the home front... and he would be leader of a country. Oh, the irony.

Some days later he switched to... its a big company, 500 employees, its hard to keep track. How, so very capable and independent of his other half. Not more irony, surely. How so, forgiving Rudd. What can we expect of you, running a country of 20mil. Think ya can, er, keep up.

Prolly not. The guys a bit fuzzy on the national accounts. Maybe his other half would be better at balancing the cheque book and keeping budgets. Afterall, he's not the one concerned with pragmatic realities like running a biz and keeping 500 people in jobs.

That incessantly pursed upper lip is very sus. So is his kid(s) in private school, or whatever euphemism used to cover it up. He has no working class credibility. None. Its politics after all and correctly affecting the requisite image is crucial to conning the electorate.

But, he and the deputy are light yrs ahead of the hackfest fronting labour the last 10yrs or so. Thats an improvement.

They say that govts usually gets voted out. Cannot see Rudd as an exception at this point.