I suggested he should join a political party, run for office and, if successful, seek the premiership or prime ministership. It appears he took my advice.
When we met years later, he made it clear he did not appreciate my comments.
We had another altercation when he misunderstood an article I wrote for The Age about the Middle East.
Despite repeated attempts to clear up the misunderstanding, my letters and requests to his office were ignored.
He found it impossible to admit to a mistake.
Both prior to the 2007 election and for almost two years afterwards it was clear the public had fallen in love with K. Rudd. His popularity ratings at 70-plus matched those of Bob Hawke.
However, nasty stories began to emerge about his treatment of staff and public servants. The first was his appalling behaviour towards a stewardess on his VIP plane when he was served the wrong meal, and later when a hair-dryer was not provided for the prime ministerial locks.
The press gallery gradually got a different picture of the all-smiling Mr Nice Guy appearing nightly on television.
At a Parliament House dinner late last year with three prominent Labor MPs, I was stunned by the fear and loathing directed at their leader. Having served with eight prime ministers and seven leaders of the opposition, I was familiar with unflattering remarks about leaders but nothing to match the vitriol heaped on Rudd.
It was not ideological but personal. In time there was hardly anyone he hadn’t insulted.
Nor was Rudd helped by the three 28-year-old neophytes who were clueless about running a prime ministerial office and acted as a praetorian guard to ensure that nobody, including senior cabinet ministers, got to see the man himself.
One senior backbencher recounted how he had been screamed at by one of the three amigos for issuing a press release the prime minister didn’t like.
I asked why he hadn’t told him where to go. He replied, “I was too stunned.”
The rudeness of Rudd and his cohorts to almost everyone in caucus was legendary. One told of walking through the house and regularly being totally ignored by the PM. “It was as if I didn’t exist.” And he had supported Rudd against Kim Beazley.
Another story that has become part of Labor folklore is the experience of a senior minister, born in England, who, scheduled to speak at an international conference in Europe on a Sunday, decided to leave on the Friday and, at his own expense, spend a couple of days with his family.
With his luggage checked in, he was waiting in the VIP lounge when he received a phone call — not from the PM, mind you, but from one of the three idiot flunkies — telling him that he was to abandon the trip and return to Canberra.
The piece de resistance, however, was the celebrated “printing allowance” episode. John Faulkner, then the special minister of state, had decided to cut the overly generous printing allowance in half.
A delegation of eight senior Labor MPs and senators went to see the PM, to be greeted with a screaming rant that included every imaginable expletive from the man himself. It was not only rude but incredibly stupid.
He chose to insult the most influential members of the Labor factions and the trade union movement. Some will consider these events of minor importance but, despite opinions to the contrary, politicians are human beings and resent being treated as excreta.
How had it come to this? How had this Jekyll and Hyde character not previously revealed himself? Simple. After almost 12 years in opposition and five changes of leadership, Labor was desperate to return to the Treasury benches.
Rudd had charmed the electorate and the caucus with the cheesy Luna Park grin and it was clear he would defeat John Howard. Prior to the 2007 election, Rudd, aware of the euphoria building up, decided to break with Labor tradition and announce that he would select his own ministry. No one had the balls to deny him. After taking over caucus he then started to pick his own candidates. The ALP became the RLP.
With any other leader it may have worked but not with an egomaniacal control freak who not only believed he was a genius but considered his colleagues to be his intellectual inferiors.
Why was he not stopped? Because caucus was prepared to overlook his appalling rudeness, his egomania, his vindictiveness and his dictatorial control of caucus and cabinet in the expectation he would give them a second term. That all changed when the polls indicated that support for Rudd had dissipated. He was now a loser. Enter Gillard. Which brings us to those who are wailing that Rudd was “brutally assassinated?” Rubbish! Rudd committed political suicide. Had he treated his colleagues even halfway decently, he would have survived.
All political leaders have their friends and their enemies. In the end Rudd had only enemies.
Barry Cohen was a minister in the Hawke government.
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