The Secret Diary of Kevin Rudd

What a great way to start a long weekend!It’s always fun slapping around the intellectual midgets on the other side of the chamber, but it’s doubly satisfying when they’ve been hoist on their own petard. I know that we may have looked like we were in a bit of trouble this week when the Libs started carrying on about some of the sponsored travel that we undertook while in opposition, but we knew all along that, as usual, they were in it up to their necks. Personally, I think the personal involvement of Mark Vaile with a guy they’ve been trying to paint as a secret contact of mine is the best part of the story. Although Andrew Robb admitting that they’d be happy to accept sponsorship from the same company was a very close second.

One thing that I think does need to be cleared up is this,

But questions remain about why Mr Tang chose to be so generous to a number of senior Labor politicians,

The answer to this is pretty straight forward. If you had to spend time with anyone from the Libs or the Nats when they were in government you’d do everything in your power to get the ALP elected too. A dinner with the Libs is only marginally less painful than root canal surgery. Spending time with the Nats is like trying to explain quantum physics to a three year old who’s drunk four litres of red cordial, actually it’s harder than that. People don’t necessarily like the ALP, but they sure do despise the Coalition.

Friends, I know that you all understand that everything that I do is in the best interests of the nation. From time to time the opposition are going to try throwing this type of mud to discredit me, you simply need to trust that there is always a perfectly good explanation for everything I do. Have a happy and safe Easter.

Friends, you’ll no doubt be hearing today about our success in getting our legislation to rollback workchoices through the Senate. I’d just like to congratulate our team for all the effort that they’ve put in since the election, using my own work ethic as an example of how to commit to a project and reach your goals. It’s also nice to see that the coalition have respected the will of the people and accepted our right to implement out agenda.

I am also pleased to announce that with the successful passage of this bill, I will be approving people’s leave requests for Easter. Please have your forms to John Faulkner’s office by midday.

PS. Leave approvals do not apply to any staffers in Treasury or Finance, we’ve got to keep working to bring inflation down, sorry guys, you’re in Canberra this weekend.

Friends, you know that I don’t place too much stock in opinion polls, I’m here busily delivering our first term agenda for all Australians, not trying to win a popularity contest. So today’s Newspoll figures really aren’t something that are taking up too much of my focus, if anything they’re more a measure of how our opposition is travelling, not the Night watchman, the News Ltd press machine.

For all the talk of a free and independent press that we like to have in a country like Australia the fact is that we have neither. Journos are desperate to be insiders in the political process so every one of them has their own cause or politician to push, News Ltd are the worst offenders, while constantly claiming that there is no editorial interference. That said, anyone who needs to be told what Rupert thinks before they write an article won’t go far in the organisation.

So today while the Night watchman languishes on a still pathetic ten per cent preferred PM figure, expect to see News Ltd hacks patting themselves on the back for their stellar efforts in putting a dent in my governments enormous popularity. You don’t need to go much further than The Australian’s chief cheerleader Dennis Shanahan to find evidence of how they deliberately distorted the truth to see what sort of effect they could have on Newspoll

After The Australian reported plans to scrap the $1600 carers’ bonus, Mr Rudd’s guarantee that “no one will be worse off” stopped the outcry and he was forced to say they would be entrenched in the budget.

Did the partisan hacks at the Australian catch us unawares? Yes they did. Do we regret the effect that their lies had on our relationship with the Australian public? Of course we do. Do we have a plan to deal with this next time? We certainly hope so.

Friends, you all know that I consider the job I do a privilege, and that the opportunity for public service is what drives me. The brushes with stardom, money and power that come with a job like mine are often a burden that must be borne in order to achieve the goals that I have for this great nation of ours.

That said, I must admit that I was touched to receive a letter from Kirk Douglas praising my apology to the stolen generation. Kirk Douglas has been a hero of mine for some time and I can still fondly remember watching The Man From Snowy River at the Starlight Drive-In with Therese. So thanks Kirk, your words have humbled me and I hope that the new direction that we are charting for Australia can set an example for the rest of the world.

By the way, is there any chance you could get Michael and Catherine’s autographs for the kids? Just send them care of my office.

I realise that there are some people of a progressive bent who believe that Malcolm Turnbull will make a good opposition leader because he’s not as extreme as the bulk of the Liberal Party and will soften the party somewhat, I’m sorry to be so blunt friends, but you are deluding yourselves. Malcolm “Goldman Sachs” Turnbull is a first class prat, whose only interests in life are directly related to his own wealth and power. Malcolm doesn’t care who or what he has to trample to achieve his aims and believes that his wealth somehow is a measure of his good judgement, rather than his family connections and the early patronage of Kerry Packer.

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Today our Kyoto Protocol ratification came into effect, we’re officially global citizens again and Australian businesses now have a way to effectively participate in the global carbon trading market. This step to the modernisation of our nation will be of enormous benefit to all of us in the decades ahead. You can thank me later.

Friends, I’m sure that by now you have heard about the appalling behaviour of the Opposition during question time and in the house in general today. I am still shocked that the hypocrites across the chamber had the temerity to try to censure me over a social justice issue. I’m not sure how many times I need to repeat myself, but no pensioners or carers will be worse off.

This whole sideshow is a pathetic attempt at a wedge and it’s becoming less and less surprising that Costello had no interest in leading this rabble. The Opposition’s tiresome fixation with lump sum payments is a hangover of their tax and bribe regime while in government. Let’s take a look at how effective that policy direction has been, there’s the Plasma TV for new Mums Baby Bonus, the residential real estate price hike First Home Buyers grant, and let’s not forget the Gerry Harvey Endowment fund Family Tax Benefit Part B. What a list of public policy successes that lot is.

Chris Bowen summed the whole situation up perfectly when he said

“Being lectured by this mob about vulnerable people is like being lectured by Paris Hilton on public modesty.”

I hate to brag, but I wrote that line for him and I’m still getting a laugh out of it now.

Brendan, you gave up any pretence of giving a damn about people in need the day you signed up with the Liberal Party and their ideology of division, intolerance and greed. Leadership isn’t about opening your mouth whenever there’s a microphone about, I hope that you learn that before you hand the leadership baton on. In the mean time, how about you just shut up for a while and let someone with some principles get on with helping the people that your party ignored for over a decade.

The campaign last year was great for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that it delivered me to a position where I could lead the nation to a brighter and more prosperous future, but another was the increased participation in the democratic process that was assisted by the development of the Australian political blogs. Sites like Larvatus Prodeo, The Poll Bludger and Possum’s Pollytics were a great asset in dismantling a lot of the nonsense being peddled by the Liberals and the former government’s mouth piece The Australian, but these people simply will not be satisfied.

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I don’t know how he does it, but whenever there seems to be anything difficult facing us as a government Brendan Nelson swoops in and rescues us. The last few days have been a little tense with speculation growing as to who will be the winners and losers in our first budget, but Brendan has swept that all aside today by uttering The M Word.

Yes it seems that a Liberal Party - National Party merger is on the cards again. I couldn’t have timed it better if I’d personally been directing Dr Nelson’s press secretary. What this is essentially about, is the Liberal Party trying desperately to grab members and resources before the Nats disappear into political oblivion. While on the face of it this is a good idea, after all that Nationals haven’t said no to the Libs over anything since the 70’s, when you drill down it’s a potential disaster for both parties.

There are two issues that complicate this issue. The first is that the grassroots members of each party hold each other in disdain, they see the Coalition as a necessary evil to keep us out of power and would find it hard to work within a united party.

The second problem that they have is that the State branches are in such differing conditions. In my home state of Queensland the Liberal Party was essentially destroyed during the Joh years, meaning that the Nats continue to be the senior Coalition partner, something they would loathe relinquishing. In Victoria the parties hate each other so much that they’ve only recently formed a coalition again, having been independent since Kennett was kicked out. There’s no way these states are going to conform to some model proposed by the Federal parties.

This is before you throw the ‘Barnaby Factor’ into the mix, we’ve already seen how effective the new leadership is, so how Mr 7 per cent thinks he can pull off a major structural change to the parties is beyond me. The important thing from my perspective is that they keep talking about it. There’s nothing like having a sideshow keeping the hacks entertained while you go about actually achieving things in government.

I don’t think that anyone is surprised to hear what treasury really thinks about the Howard years. There’s a lot of hard work to do friends, just remember that all the pain we’re about to go through is thanks to the last mob.