Yes, I’m sure there’s a lot of people who can make a case against Kevin Rudd becoming the next Secretary-General of the United Nations, but that’s not why I think Malcolm Turnbull has made a mistake in not supporting his bid.
I’m not going to get carried away and call it one of his biggest mistakes, because, let’s face it, he’s made a truckload, even if you count his recent Double Dissolution election a success because they’re still the government.
No, I’m just looking at the possible scenarios and speculating that Turnbull picked the one that’s likely to play out worst for him.
Scenario 1: The Australia Government could have supported Kevin Rudd’s bid. The most likely outcome from this is would have been that it ceased to be news after today and, eventually, because of there being a better candidate or because of various backroom deals, someone else would have got the job. Kevin Rudd then thanks the government and there’s no problem for Turnbull.
Scenario 2: After the Australia Government support Kevin Rudd’s bid, by some fluke, he actually gets the job, Turnbull gets to bask in the glory of being a “key player” in an Australian getting such an important job. Gee, aren’t we swell, and doesn’t this just show what can happen when we all work together, etc. This ends up being a win for Turnbull, as well as Rudd.
Scenario 3: The Australian Government announce that it isn’t going to support Rudd because they don’t think he should get the job. For some reason, Turnbull thought that this was the best option. Now, I don’t know how Turnbull expects this one to play out. Perhaps he’s delusional like a number of others in the Liberal Party, who seem to think that nobody votes for the Labor Party, and that everyone believes that Rudd was an evil megalomaniac. While there may be some support for that view within Labor ranks, the fact remains that Rudd was still popular with a large section of the public, even when he lost the 2013 election. Many people – and importantly, including some who voted for Malcolm – will see the decision as petty and vindictive. of course, the added bonus in this scenario is that Turnbull’s stopped Rudd from going to New York and given him a lot of free time. Now, I’m not suggesting that Kevin would ever want to seek vengeance on someone who robbed him of a job he wanted. That doesn’t sound like the Kevin who happily served as Foreign Minister after Gillard became PM, and who was content to simply remain a backbencher after he was removed from the Cabinet. No, I can’t see Rudd wanting to cause Turnbull any problems. Although I am prepared to suggest that this may be the first time that Kevin has started considering possible ways that he could assist Shorten in his quest to become PM. If you’re ever going to hit him for a donation to the election fund, Bill, I suspect tonight might be a great time!
I’m trying to see any way in which Turnbull sees Scenario 3 as a winner, unless it’s the fact that it keeps Cory Bernardi happy. Which of course it did with Cory tweeting his media release:
Still, I guess when you only have a one seat majority in the lower house, then you are at the mercy of everyone, even if Bernardi is a senator and his leaving wouldn’t bring down the government. Whatever, those poor souls who thought that being elected in his own right would bring out the “real” Malcolm must surely realise that the one we’ve had for the past few years IS the real Malcolm: Happy to lend his support to popular causes like the environment and same sex marriage, just so long as it doesn’t involve actually doing anything about them. And if it involves the risk of some personal cost, well, let’s just change the subject. Let’s have a Royal Commission into that shocking Northern Terroritory thing and limit it to the NT, because, well, no other government is facing an election and needs to take the sting out of the story. Let’s empower some judge to find out how a situation arose where guards were using hoods and restraint chairs on young people in custody just because the current government had passed legislation to make such things legal. I mean, it’s going to be pretty hard for the judge to find how it all went so wrong.
Good luck, Malcolm. I suspect you’ll need it!
