Our Great Leader..
AT MIDDAY on Sunday Kevin Rudd held a rushed press conference. He'd found the Kormoran!
Well, no, not him personally, you understand.
No, our Prime Meddler was merely announcing some private citizens had found a German ship you'd never heard of that had been sunk in World War II in a battle with HMAS Sydney.
Rudd himself actually had nothing to do with the find. It was just that the searchers had been given money by the Howard government via the navy, which in exchange was given first dibs on making any media statements.
And that was all the excuse Rudd needed to take over. Me, me, me!
The next day the Prime Minister held another press conference.
This time he'd found the Sydney!Well, actually it was those same searchers, the Finding Sydney Foundation, who'd discovered it.
And they'd actually discovered it the day before - indeed, smack bang during Rudd's first press conference - and confirmed their find to their headquarters just an hour later.
But Rudd claimed the bragging rights for that, too, and delayed revealing the Sydney find until Monday morning -- thus giving him two exciting goes in front of the cameras. Me, me, me!
A small insight, only, but how many other instances I could pick just like it.
The new Prime Minister is, in fact, a control freak, although not yet a particularly effective one.
And he's about to sit a very tough exam: can he delegate, or must he learn how dangerous his kind of me-me-me meddling - especially from long distance - can be?
For some strange reason Rudd has decided to leave this month for a trip of more than two weeks overseas, taking in Washington, New York, London, Brussels, Bucharest and Beijing.
There's nothing urgent in his itinerary, much of which - like visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels and a NATO conference in Romania - he could have left to his very able Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith.
But, no. Why leave to Smith what Rudd could do better! And what an opportunity to fluff his feathers on the foreign affairs perch he's happiest on, and to fluff them at foreign leaders who've known him for years as just a dowdy Opposition spokesman.
So off he's going, on his fourth overseas jaunt already and the longest that any Prime Minister has made so early in his term.
And to make sure the press don't miss a second, Rudd is pressing into service a second RAAF plane to cart them along.
There is, however, a catch to Rudd's excellent adventure. It's that control-freak thing. How is he going to keep swarming over his ministers and the media left behind while he's away?
Indeed, there will be plenty back home for him to bother himself with if he chose. Plenty he should be bothering with.
After all, the economy is being battered by foreign shocks and his money ministers are cobbling together a tough May Budget that's already causing the Government political grief - and could cause a lot more.
Then there are other urgent problems, such as Aboriginal communities now so devastated by violence and booze that black leaders in Aurukun and Halls Creek have begged their children be taken again.
Or perhaps Rudd, a big recipient of Chinese trips and favours, might use time at his desk to nut out a response to China killing Tibetans that's half as tough as his response to Japan killing whales. Like vowing to "do everything within our power . . . to bring this slaughter to an end", as he told Japan, rather than meekly asking his Chinese friends to "exercise restraint".
And, of course, there's still Rudd ministers - like Peter Garrett - who need help settling into office, which is why Rudd this week butted in and declared Garrett's plans to get rid of plastic shopping bags would not include a levy. Back to you, Peter.
Of course, Rudd could argue that his team is well up to the job and can handle his 17-day absence. Certainly his ambitious deputy, Julia Gillard, would love to mind Rudd's shop and show us how a first female prime minister would look in charge.
But is that how Rudd or his Government really work?
In fact, Rudd has long been diagnosed as a man who can't let go.
Nicholas Stuart, author of Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography, put it crisply last year: "At some point Rudd has to realise he can't control everything . . . learning how to delegate is a vital part of getting to the top."
But that seems to be advice Rudd won't or can't heed. How many examples do you need?
There's Rudd insisting on being the first Labor leader to be given the power to name his own ministry.
There's Rudd bossing around his ministers, even ordering them to each visit two schools and two homeless shelters.
There's Rudd demanding government agencies such as the CSIRO have their media releases now cleared by his office.
He's everywhere, and it's manic. We now see Rudd making trivial announcements a junior minister should make instead, if only for
the practice.
Why, for instance, is Rudd involving himself with poker machines -- a state responsibility -- or meeting photogenic sports chiefs to discuss drunken teenagers? What's the big picture behind this frantic busy-busy?
I can understand why Rudd flew to the Bali global warming summit last December (with a third of his Cabinet, no less), even though no other head of government bothered to show up, sending flunkies instead. Signing Kyoto was good PR at home, after all.
But why is he sweating himself on stuff so small that he's even personally ringing people like former Young Australian of the Year Huw Evans to invite him to his 2020 Ideas Summit? Didn't Rudd promise to leave the invitations to an "independent" panel, at "arm's length from government"?
But Rudd can't help himself. Take his "community Cabinets", in which he drags out all his busy ministers to some public forum so a few hundred voters can grill them to prove they are "listening" and "in touch".
It was always going to be a monstrous waste of time, but has turned out to be even more pointless given Rudd leaves his ministers just watching on while he hogs the floor, dealing with all kinds of trivia from funding for the Caboolture Regional Arts Development to an offer of advice from a woman claiming to operate under a "new paradigm" involving Einstein and the Zulus.
Hear it from the AAP reporter who was at the Brisbane "community Cabinet": "Mr Rudd took questions for almost two hours and in most cases answered them himself rather than passing them on to his ministers."
Why were they there, then? To simply admire their Great Leader?
Indeed, what on earth was Rudd there for? Surely he has better things to be getting on with.
And it's that combination of Rudd's ever-busy meddling and his curious lack of focus that could eventually drive his Government over a cliff.
There was a warning of this only this month, when Rudd decided to visit Papua New Guinea to "mend fences" - fences that were broken only because PNG is ruinously corrupt, is wasting our colossal aid budget and last year smuggled out on an air force jet a man wanted by Australian police for alleged child sex offences.
Rudd must have had more urgent things to do - repaint the Lodge? - than to reassure PNG politicians who actually need a warning.
Indeed, one thing he should have concentrated on instead was his plan for the annual bonus for seniors and for carers.
Reports were rife that Rudd planned to axe them, and the Prime Minister, in a flying bubble over Melanesia, seemed unaware how much political damage they were doing.
And with no Rudd around, his ministers weren't game or licensed to kill the story before that damage was done.
Only after four days, and Rudd's return, did the Government announce it would keep the bonuses, after all.
We mustn't exaggerate Rudd's megalomania.
Gough Whitlam still sets that standard, taking over 13 ministries when he was first elected prime minister, and initially running Australia in a "duumvirate", with Lance Barnard his only other minister.
But Rudd has a will to control that burns more nakedly than even Whitlam's, and which I predict will give his ministers more blisters.
His trip overseas will be his test.
Can he leave it to them to do their jobs without him? And how much will they thrive - or party - in his absence?
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Originally Posted by Paula
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