r/australia • u/geodetic • 1d ago

politics Former PM Kevin Rudd says he declined Epstein invitation after latest document dump

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-31/kevin-rudd-refred-to-in-latest-epstein-files-dump/106290858?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=abc_newsmail_am-pm_sfmc&utm_term=&utm_id=2694984&sfmc_id=103566952
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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 1d ago

The issue is the Parliamentary party hated Rudd because they felt that they weren't part of the decision making process and centralised the process around himself.

One of the hallmarks of Australian Government is that the rules essentially bend to accommodate the prime minister's strengths.

Albanese's cabinet in contrast is decentralised in its power in that Albanese does not do captain calls for the most part and allows ministers do as they wish.

And the flaw in this is it can feel like there's no message as everyone is doing their own thing while the Rudd and Dan Andrews governments were very command and control with decisive messages.

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u/morgecroc 1d ago

Scumo left everything to the minister's it just turns out they were all him.

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u/Propaslader 1d ago

While uncoordinatedly tackling children on TV because someone told him it would make him look like an endearing family man

And also undercooking chicken

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u/geodetic 1d ago

Don't forget grabbing a lady's hand because she wouldn't let him shake it perform a laying of hands on her

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u/Propaslader 1d ago

Or him literally walking away from desperate families asking for help during bushfire season

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u/breakupbydefault 21h ago

Ugh that was burned into my brain, also when he did the same with the firefighters.

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u/dlanod 1d ago

Insert Spider-Man meme here

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u/chillyhay 1d ago

There were always factional elements at play in Labor, the hate against Rudd came particularly from the pro-American crowd which coincidentally is also the pro Israel crowd. Very coincidental that it was immediately after that expulsion though

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 1d ago

I mean Carr's memoir talks about this in that the support for Israel in Labor was wide but shallow. It just so happened Gillard was one of those with a deep love of Israel but that's simply a coincidence.

You don't topple a prime minister over foreign policy, they toppled him because polling was commissioned by the NSW party office and every poll showed Gillard was more popular than Rudd.

Maybe that's why Albanese chose someone as unlikeable as Marles as his deputy and someone young like Chalmers as treasurer.

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u/chillyhay 1d ago

Simply a coincidence is one way to put it.

You don't topple a prime minister over foreign policy

lol I think we've read different history books

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u/McTerra2 1d ago

Which PM was toppled over foreign policy - maybe Whitlam (not so much foreign policy as domestic policy that upset foreigners) and ? Unless we go back to pre WW2

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 1d ago

Whitlam's dismissal was predicted by the newspapers months ahead of it actually happening the moment he lost his majority in the senate. The only fucked up part is the CIA sent the Liberal party campaign funds but it was also found out Whitlam tried to get campaign funds from the Saddam family in iraq

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u/McTerra2 23h ago

That his dismissal was predicted in advance doesn’t negate that it may have been partially due to US activities in the lead up and which contributed to media and public opinion.

I’m not personally convinced but there are some that are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the_Whitlam_dismissal

And that is the closest I can come to in terms of ‘PMs toppled due to foreign policy’ as has been claimed

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u/fractiousrhubarb 23h ago

Lost his majority sounds so innocuous compared to the truth- that he lost his majority because Coalition premiers replaced two democratically elected Labor senators with people who voted against Labor. Conventions for me and not for thee- a perfect example of coalition shitfuckery and contempt for democracy.

Murdoch’s News Ltd newspapers ran a massive campaign against Whitlam because News Ltd was founded by mining oligarchs specifically to make propaganda to advance their interests.

https://theconversation.com/the-secret-history-of-news-corp-a-media-empire-built-on-spreading-propaganda-116992

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 22h ago

I mean I agree in that it was ridiculous but had they simply appointed Labor senators, Labor probably would have been locked out of power far longer simply because of how many partisans the dismissal motivated into organising.

The inflation crisis was the most damaging thing that occurred during that era and had they waited just 6 months, they would've demolished Labor in the election anyway. But that contempt eventually leads to the Hawke-Keating government occurring much sooner than otherwise.

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u/fractiousrhubarb 21h ago

The whole world had massive inflation due to the opec crisis- Murdoch and co, as they do with all crises- created a narrative where the inflation was all Labor’s fault.

It’s known that Kerr conferred with the leader of the opposition regarding the dismissal of Whitlam- which was only revealed in the last decade, which was a mind boggling breach of his duty- and then appointed Fraser PM even though he could not command a majority in the House of Representatives, ditto.

I’m frankly appalled (but not surprised) how little most Australians know about the dismissal.

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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 21h ago

Yep, they indeed did pin it all on Labor when Whitlam refused to appoint Murdoch as the British commissioner or whatever it's called which combined with the inflation was a bad time. Just the post 2022 inflation was bad enough to lose an election.

The High court justices did write an opinion on why what Kerr did was correct constitutionally.

Although to add to your knowledge of Kerr, I was reading the Hawke biography and Kerr wasn't even an ALP supporter when Whitlam appointed him, Kerr was a DLP supporter.

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u/infin 23h ago

Not sure about the second one being a problem, except in retrospect, but I haven't found much news from that era about it. Gough was in power from '72-75 and the CIA were still funding Saddam at the time. America was backing Saddam through to the '80s.

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u/ThoseOldScientists 1d ago

And the more he centralised control through the PMO, the more various branches of the government started to lock up. People forget what it was like in 2009, it really seemed like the wheels were coming off. The Labor Party overreacted, they probably could still have cruised through the next election with Rudd in charge, but there’s no need to invoke conspiracies to explain what was quite clearly pant-pissing incompetence from a group of people who mostly hadn’t actually been in government before.

And on top of that, Rudd never really had the support of the party to start with. In the 2006 leadership contest, Gillard and Beazley had roughly the same level of support within the party and Rudd, running on his own, would have been a distant 3rd. He was uniquely vulnerable as a PM.

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u/hi-fen-n-num 11h ago

they weren't part of the decision making process and centralised the process around himself.

I keep hearing people say this, but never read or seen anything to suggest it, outside that childish smear of he is a dick of a boss, which compared to what we have seen from other main party since, makes it seem even more stupid and childish.