Rudd’s robust language is not the problem

Two weeks ago Kevin Rudd got angry with Labor parliamentarians complaining about a drop in salary. They represented a considerable interest group unhappy with the latest cut delivered by the government’s feared “Razor Gang”’. Lower house members were to have their printing allowance cut from $100,000 to $75,000 (a $3,750,000 saving) while senators went down from $16,667 to $12,500 (saving $316, 692). The grand total is a $4 million saving which will go a little to servicing a $58b debt. (photo by Derek Barry)

The rebels, who mostly represented marginal seats, didn’t see it that way and sent a cross section of aggrieved members  to visit Rudd. In attendance were Don Farrell, Bernie Ripoll, David Feeney and Michael Forshaw from the Party’s right, and Carol Brown, Maria Vamvakinou and Sharryn Jackson from the left. Parliamentary secretary Maxine McKew warned the outcome in advance of the meeting. “To anyone who thinks they can’t sell a message on $75,000 a year more than many people earn – then they should go out and argue the case on the 7.30 Report tonight.”

Having had a deputy soften them up, Rudd moved in for the kill when they met. He dismissed them with an imperious “I don’t care what you fuckers think”. The Age’s Misha Schubert reported the meeting though she coyly translated Rudd’s words as “I don’t care what you think, this is going to be done.”

The muckraking (but usually well-informed) Andrew Landeryou quoted one attendee who said Rudd’s performance was “Mount Vesuvius meets Tourette’s Syndrome”. Landeryou thought there was nothing wrong with roughing up the troops a bit when they are straying from the cause of righteousness, but said it made for very ugly listening.

It took the Poison Dwarf of Australian journalism to ensure Rudd’s swearing got the widest audience. In his Sunday Herald-Sun column this week Glenn Milne highlighted it as the most important part of his story about the meeting in his first sentence: “Kevin Rudd has launched another expletive-laden tirade — this time directed at Labor’s factional bosses, including three female MPs!” Milne’s news value on a two-week old event was based on the dubious facts Rudd’s audience was mixed and were “shocked” despite being “hardened operatives”.

It is dangerous to rely on Milne’s unnamed sources – he is not averse to making things up. But amid the manufactured outrage, he does add that Senator David Feeney was at the meeting and his question was the straw that broke the camel’s back. After telling all present they were fuckers whose opinion did not count, Rudd singled out Feeney for personal attention telling him “you can get fucked” and asking, “Don’t you fucking understand?”

Feeney would not confirm or deny anything but Crikey’s Guy Rundle (link is paywalled) says it is credible. Rundle called Feeney the Cartman of Labor politics “bumptious, spherical, and obsessively concerned with the management of his Victorian right-wing microfaction.” Any encounter with Feeney for longer than 15 minutes, he says “would have most people praising the PM’s Christ-like restraint in sticking to verbal abuse and not stabbing him through the eyes with a biro, so as to better mash his frontal lobes.”

Rundle may not think highly of Feeney, but his question is valid: why does a micro-faction running Senator needs a huge mail allowance? This point was lost in the scrabble to report the f-bombs. A quick check of Google News has found 437 stories about Rudd’s coarse language.

Perhaps the attention is richly deserved given Rudd’s micro-media management. And yet for a man given to opaqueness, Rudd made his own views “absolutely clear” on this matter: “these entitlements needed to be cut back, and I make no apology for either the content of my conversation or the robustness with which I expressed my views.” He is right, the robustness is fine – the real problem lies elsewhere in Rudd’s use of English.

It is the sentences where he is devoid of meaning we should watch. At the Major Economic Forum earlier this year, a journalist asked him a question whether there would be any climate change action coming out of the meeting. The response was classic Rudd: “It is highly unlikely that anything will emerge from the MEF in terms of detailed programmatic specificity”. Rudd’s thought the forum was futile but disguised it with gobbledegook in Yes Minister style.

Rudd is a technocrat so providing fodder for a generation of comics is a small price to pay for commanding the message. But here is the problem: the real message got lost in the subterfuge and his ego is too big notice it. Perhaps, like the media, he needs reminding about two inconvenient facts that are the major news stories at the moment: The people he leads are the world’s biggest-carbon polluters and his neighbours in Pacific Islands are drowning.

Instead of these inconvenient truths, we hear him leaking low expectations to hosts about the December climate summit in Copenhagen. But Copenhagen can’t just be pointless like the Major Economic Forum was – it’s time to hear about some detailed specified programs to save the planet. Rudd is talking down the prospect of a victory for renewable energy because he has been captured by carbon storage. Australia remains locked in high carbon solutions after 20 years of climate change talks. That’s not good enough, Mr Rudd, and if you can’t support Kyoto II, then get out of the way. Otherwise we’ll all be as fucked as Senator Feeney.