Former Gellibrand MP and attorney-general Nicola Roxon has launched a scathing critique of the Rudd years, slamming former prime minister Kevin Rudd as a ‘bastard’ who was a rude and dysfunctional leader and calling on him to quit politics.
“Removing Kevin was an act of political bastardry for sure. But this was only possible because Kevin had been such a bastard,” she said on Wednesday evening.
But in giving the John Button lecture, Ms Roxon also acknowledged that while Labor did the right thing by getting rid of Mr Rudd in June 2010, the party did it in a clumsy way.
“I think we had all the right reasons to act but I think we were clumsy and shortsighted in the way we did it.”
The former Labor frontbencher, who quit politics at the 2013 election to spend more time with her family, also spelled out “handy hints” for a future Labor government.
In reference to the whirlwind days of the Rudd government, Ms Roxon argued that governments should not do too many many things at once.
“The truth is, government actually can’t cope with it and the public can’t absorb it.”
Ms Roxon, who has long been a supporter of Julia Gillard’s, also called for ministers to be given greater responsibility and work, with prime ministers given less.
The former member for Gellibrand who was health minister under the Rudd government and later Australia’s first female attorney-general under Ms Gillard, also suggested Mr Rudd had a messiah complex.
“Accept that you are not always right and cannot always fix everything,” she said. “Kevin had a fatal attraction to everyone else’s problems.”
Ms Roxon said that in her opinion, for the good of the Labor party Mr Rudd should quit politics, because while he remained in parliament, destabilising polls would be run about his popularity.
Ms Roxon also criticised Labor for being overly polite when Mr Rudd was ousted in 2010.
“What the rest of the world calls a polite white lie became political poison.”
