Dear GrahamY,

Looks like it is up to me to be the contrarian.

I would have him back, not without trepidation certainly, but I would be happy to give him another shot.

That could be put down to nostalgia but I do have a soft spot for principled visionaries and Rudd for a while had that quality. He was the reason I voted Labour for the first time in over ten years.

I took my kids out of school and headed to Canberra for the Apology staying in the local caravan park and I have to tell you it ranks up there in formative experiences. We saw Julia put the stake into the heart of Work Choices the next day. A few months later we went to see him at a Community Cabinet in a school in a very depressed area near us. A few months further on, quite unannounced, we received a cheque for a dental check up for my children. These things mattered.

During the GFC he didn't pile money into banks but spread it to ordinary people, sought to improve schools and put insulation in houses including those who might not otherwise have afforded it.

You may sneer at the Community Summit but it was visionary and I have a very conservative uncle who was an invitee and was quite inspired by it, you may also have sneered at Rudd with pen and paper in hand taking down notes from angry insulation suppliers but to the ordinary Joe damn that was good stuff.

There is a sense that the vision was stripped away by the pragmatic, bought politicians from both sides including Gillard.

I have some quite conservative folk on both sides of the family who are still supportive of him including my wife.

So when you claim "Rudd failed comprehensively as Prime Minister, mostly because he didn't have any plans for what he would do once he got there - getting there was enough." it doesn't ring true with what we saw and experienced through his prime ministership.

Csteele, if you value symbolism over substance then Rudd might have achieved something, but I don't, and neither do most Australians. What benefits did the apology bring most Aborigines? The ones at the tent embassy will tell you they are no better off. Which ideas from the summit were implemented? Which ideas from the summit even if implemented would have made any difference? How many more kids can think better or understand the world better because of new school halls, or new computers (a fair chunk of which haven't been delivered yet)?

Why throw tax payers money at taxpayers when they didn't need it thrown and it could have been saved to make them wealthier in the long term?

Do you know why he never threw money at Australian banks? Because none of them needed the money that their overseas cousins did. If they had he wouldn't have been playing hard ball. He ponied up the money for the guarantee pretty quickly (as he should have, although less generously). Government loans would have been easy if they'd been demanded.

I'll give him marks for bringing some dental care under Medibank, although I don't personally see any of that money.

And he started the roll back of employment to the bad old days before even Labor's reforms of the 80s. The Liberals were silly to bring in work choices, but there was a whole raft of reform before then that they introduced that was working. Work Choices gave Labor the chance to jettison all the reforms because Rudd and now Gillard are owned by vested interests that saw the last 30 years of reform as a threat.

csteele,Rudd is an narcissist and extemely arrogant.He grooms himself impeccably.These are the signs of a very insecure person who covers his inadaquacies with image without substance.This makes him suseptable to all manner of diversion,perversion and unintended corruption.He believes in his image and not in himself.

That said,I agree,let him destroy Labor.

Rudd and the Juliar Pace Makers
I like it ,I like it,
I like the way you put your fingers up my care,
And I like the way,you take me in,
And I like the way,you suck me in,
When you're ethics ain't there.

I like it,I like it,
I like the words you say,
And all the things untrue,
And I like the way,
You tell me a lie,
And I like the way,
Your're winkin' your eye,
And I know,I like me-ee,
You know I like me.

Do that again,
You're drivin' me insane,
Kiss me again,
That's another thing I like me for,

I like it ,I like it,
I like the funny feeling,
You being less free,
And I like it more with every day,
And I like it always,
Hearing you say,
You're liking it too-oo.
You're likin' too.

here's the music; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOYOJAczH0k

It really doesn't bother me what Kevin Rudd thinks of himself. What greatly concerns me is that there are people out with voting power who for some inexplicable reason would have him back. The mind boggles.

Rudd is a media salesman, just like Beaty was and it is for this reason that he has popularity.

Now he did have vision, however, he lacked, or better still, labor lacked, the ability to implement and this was the reason for so many failures.

You see it's the whole labor/union way of thinking, protect the worker at any cost.

Now that's fine, but what about the job creator, they first need assurances that they will make money, otherwise the risk of business outweighs the gains, hence the slow down in business take-up

IR laws have crippled this country, but they didn't listen.

Now their fundamental error was not listening to the experts and just going off like a bull at a gate.

This is generally due to the fact that very few, if any, have built a business, now they may have run something that was built for them, but running something and building something are very different.

The stimulus.
Should have been in the from of a restricted debit card, with a use by date. Cigs, grog and gambling not allowed. Use it or loose it! Now that would have been better.

Better still, use the money to create jobs, anything other than the waste they resided over. TWICE!

Insulation.
Again, nothing wrong with the thought, but should have been handed to field experts to plan and implement.

Existing operators should have been given funding to expand, rather than the local plumber or gardener becoming an instant millionaire, while at the same time making it almost impossible for the everage punter to get a tradie.

More billions wasted.

Copenhargen, his ultimate brain fart.

For some reason he wanted to be the first, why, because he was arragant.

Even today we have a carbon tax, from the smallest omitted that dwarfs anything else in the world. But at what cost!

You see, they (llabor) don't care about the cost, they just want the attention.

It stands to reason if you completely stuff things up, even the slightest improvement appears to be a mile stone of an achievement.

Continued

Continued
IR laws.
They have got the balance wrong.

On the one hand they have left many sectors untouched, yet, they have crippled truism and hospitality.

Many mums would don the apron at the local caffee on a Sunday morning, leaving dad to spend some quality time with the kids.

Mums were happy with the pay, dad was happy, the caffee owner and the customer were also happy, but labor and the unions saw better.

They thought that the mum was giving up her Sunday morning so should be rewarded for it.

The result being, those mums no longer have that extra money coming in, the caffee has had to close, or employ juniors, most of whom don't even drink coffee, so don't really understand why it has to be so perfect and the customer has to accept second rate service.

If you ask most young people, how is your day going, they will usually say something like, I hope it's not to busy, or, I Finnish in seven minutes.

It's because they don't value the job lime the mums did.
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