Kevin Rudd the man Gerard McManus

December 05, 2006 12:00am

SOME Labor MPs could be in for a shock when they learn what Kevin Rudd really stands for. He is closer to John Howard on many issues than Kim Beazley was.

On Iraq, Mr Rudd has never unequivocally supported Mr Beazley’s early exit strategy. The new leader fought tooth and nail to stop Mark Latham declaring his intention to “bring the troops home by Christmas”.

On industrial relations, he is unlikely to repeat Mr Beazley’s constant pledge to “tear up” all Australian Workplace Agreements because he knows individual contracts in some form are here to stay.

And he is even more wedded to the United States than Mr Beazley was, despite his party’s deep reservations about George W. Bush’s aggressive foreign policies.

In fact, Mr Rudd is an enigma in Labor politics.

He is a committed Christian in a party of proud secularists.

He is a one-man ecumenical movement: a cradle Catholic who now attends his wife’s Anglican Church, and who is also an unashamed admirer of Protestant reformer Martin Luther.

Mr Rudd’s political hero is Keir Hardy, the Scottish evangelical Christian miner who taught himself to read and became the first leader of the British Labour Party.

Mr Rudd is a member of the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship and recently wrote a paper arguing the Christian view of the world was just as much, if not more, about social justice as it was about moral issues.

He is also one of few inside Labor to acknowledge the party has an identity problem with significant sections of the community and must fix it to win government.

He has been vocal in arguing that Labor should not let the Coalition hijack the Christian vote.

But he has failed to take a lead on moral issues in Parliament.

There are some uncanny similarities between Mark Latham and Kevin Rudd. Both came from poor families, both lost their fathers at an early age and were doted on by their mothers.

Both were intellectually gifted, became school dux and enjoyed a meteoric rise through Labor ranks.

On the dark side, both are authoritarian and dictatorial. But that’s where the similarities end.

Mr Latham thought he could talk the talk Australians could relate to, but he had the tragic flaw of bad judgment and blew a fuse when the pressure got too much. He could never have become prime minister.

Mr Rudd by contrast is measured, conservative, careful and cautious. He’ll go out of his way to be seen as a safe pair of hands.

Mr Rudd is also different because he has had real jobs other than being a political apparatchik.

He married Therese Rein at 24 and family is his anchor: “For me, my family is the most important thing in my life. It’s the backbone of my life.”

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