Kiwiblog

News.com.au reports:

KEVIN Rudd would catapult Labor into an election-winning position if he was to be reinstalled as leader, according to a new Galaxy poll.

A comeback by the former prime minister would deliver a 14 per cent boost to Labor’s primary vote in Queensland, putting it in line to seize two-thirds of the state’s seats.

The poll of 800 Queenslanders, taken on the evenings of February 20 and 21, found that federal Labor’s support, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the helm, was stuck on 33 per cent – close to the primary vote Labor received at the last election.

This would see Tony Abbott lead the Coalition to victory by 55 per cent to 45 per cent on a two-party preferred basis in Queensland if preferences flowed as they did in 2010.

But Labor’s primary vote would soar to 47 per cent in Queensland if Mr Rudd returned to the leadership and faced off against Mr Abbott, the poll found.

Rudd is effectively campaigning full-time to gain the leadership back off Gillard. It will come to a head in March probably.

I’m not sure Rudd will win though. Generally MPs will vote for their own surivival, but a fair few Labor MPs would rather lose their seats than have Rudd back as Leader.

Speculation is growing in Australia that Kevin Rudd will (again) challenge Julia Gillard for the Labor Party leadership in March.

The article linked to has some graphics and stats on their social media usage, which I have summarised below:

Kevin Rudd has an incredible number of followers. Around 1 in 20 Australians follow him (and a few Kiwis). But he doesn’t just broadcast – he engages all the time with people tweeting him. So does Tony Abbott it seems.

This video is quite amusing. Polls in Australia show that voters wants Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull to lead their respective parties. An audience member notes that both are successful, very wealthy, and popular (except with their colleagues) and urges them to set up their own political party. Turnbull says he is committed to the Liberals. Rudd jokes that he and Malcolm could never agree on the leadership

The Australian reports:

The former Liberal leader is making it clear there will be no challenge for the leadership before the next election and that his aim is to be a senior, influential member of the Coalition cabinet should Tony Abbott win government, The Australian reports.

After months of co-operation between the former opposition leader and the man who replaced him after the party division over the carbon emissions trading scheme in 2009, a new stability and certainty is emerging within the senior Coalition ranks.

As Labor uses Mr Turnbull’s standing with voters to try to drive a wedge into the Liberals, Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull have been in “close and regular personal contact” co-ordinating how to handle the prickly political issues of Mr Abbott’s defeat of Mr Turnbull as Liberal leader, Mr Turnbull’s continuing popular appeal, policy differences over carbon pricing and Julia Gillard’s campaign against Mr Abbott. …

There’s a lesson here for some parties in NZ.  Abbott did not get spooked by Tunrbull’s popularity and authorise a whispering campaign against him. He talked to him on a regular basis to make sure he was confident he had a key role to play going forward.

Very funny.

news.com.au reports:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard will have her hands full when parliament resumes this week, fending off fresh leadership speculation, facing a potentially heated caucus meeting and bracing for a new opinion poll.

Newspapers said Joel Fitzgibbon, the government’s chief whip, was openly canvassing caucus for votes to return Kevin Rudd to the top job.

When the Chief Whip starts lobbying for change you have real problems. The challenge for Labor is deciding between the leader the public hates and the leader the caucus hates.

Incidentally I was staggered to be listening to Morning Report this morning, and hear an interview between I presume one of the hosts and the RNZ Australian correspondent. The host said something like:

“So Kevin Rudd will just be getting on with the job of Foreign Minister” and the correspondent said “That’s right”.

Rudd resigning as Foreign Minister and challenging Gillard for the leadership earlier this year was a rather major news story.

The Australian reports:

“I’m a very happy little vegemite being Prime Minister … being Foreign Minister of Australia,” he told ABC Central West today while on his way to Condobolin, west of Orange, to open a rotary-funded indigenous studies centre.

One can forgive Kevin for the slip-up, as regaining the top job must be at the top of his thoughts most of the time.

Recent polls have shown he would do much better against the Coalition than Julia Gillard. However she is genuinely liked by many of his colleagues and Rudd is not, so the decision is not as easy as it might otherwise be. But this latest poll is a shocker for Gillard:

Ms Gillard is now neck and neck with Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister among female voters, 39 per cent to 37 per cent, compared to 52 per cent to 33 per cent at the last election.

Abbott has always been considered a total turn-off for female voters. If he is only 2% behind amongst women, then his biggest weakness has been overcome.

Gillard is in trouble. And it is not Tony Abbott doing the damage, but almost certainly Kevin Rudd.

A poll has the coalition ahead 52% to 48%, and on radio John Pagani said that he had heard that Labor’s polling was not looking good in the all important marginal seats. So how has it happened?

Well first there was the leak to Laurie Oakes about the deal with Rudd for him to stay on until October, which Gillard walked away from. As only three people witnessed it, not hard to guess who put that out there.

Then came the leak that in Cabinet Gillard fought against Labor’s paid parental leave scheme. This has damaged her amongst “babyland”. Gillard also tried to limit pension increases – hell I am liking her more and more. But the public are not. And again no prizes for guessing the likely leaker.

And the latest leak also has Rudd all over it – a revelation that Gillard sometimes sent her bodyguard to meetings of the Cabinet national security committee. That one may be especially damaging.

And in case there is much doubt it is Rudd, Alexander Downer reveals that the former Liberal Government used to feed info to Rudd when he was a junior Labor MP, knowing Rudd would use it to undermine the Labor Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, as Rudd wanted his job.

Is it just me, or do Rudd and Chris Carter seem somewhat alike – both try and rat-fuck their leaders, because they had their travel perks and status taken away?

The Herald talks whaling:

The collapse of international whaling negotiations at Morocco is a chilling moment for the future of controlled whaling, let alone the prospect of a complete ban. The collapse is no less disturbing for the fact that it has always been as likely as not.

The International Whaling Commission proposal to the three nations that permit commercial whaling, Japan, Norway and Iceland, never satisfied either side. …

With all hope of a compromise now gone, the New Zealand Government will probably join Australia in its case against Japan at the International Court of Justice.

It is not a course that promises effective policing of the Southern Ocean even if the court can be persuaded the Antarctic is a whale sanctuary in international law. Even if a favourable ruling can be obtained, the case is likely to take years and leave the ocean open to unrestricted whaling in the interim.

Not even Greenpeace and other environmental lobbies at Agidir favoured court action over a negotiated compromise. Mr McCully went out of his way to praise their helpful approach to the negotiations, an approach that helps keep non-whaling governments and most of the public firmly behind the effort to end all whaling.

I suspect we will join the court case now.

The Dom Post looks at Allan Hubbard and the SFO:

The good people of Timaru seem stunned by news that highly regarded local businessman Allan Hubbard, and wife Jean, might have fallen foul of the law. Last Sunday, Commerce Minister Simon Power took the rare step of putting the couple themselves, Aorangi Securities and seven charitable trusts into what is known as statutory management. He said the objective was to “prevent fraud and reckless company management [and] to protect investors …”

The city’s newspaper, the Timaru Herald, said in an editorial last Monday that the Hubbards’ sin, in official eyes, seemed to be the unconventional way they did business. It went on: “If the allegations are unfounded, the officials involved will have humiliated one of the country’s most successful and generous businessmen for nothing. They will also have wasted a good deal of taxpayers’ money at a time when there is no shortage of directors of failed companies to chase.”

It is that latter point that so upsets Mr Hubbard’s supporters.

All those who broke the law should face consequences for that.

Little wonder that Mr Power, aside from rejigging the justice system, is upending securities law, too. He plans to have a new and independent Financial Markets Authority, consolidating the powers and functions of the Securities Commission, some of those of the Registrar of Companies and Government Actuary, and some of the NZX’s regulatory role, operating early next year.

He has also completely restructured the financial advisory industry, and now wants submissions on how to replace the Securities Act and Securities Markets Act, in a bid to strengthen the financial markets, and restore investor confidence. “The Government cannot and will not legislate for risk,” he said this week, “but we can build a regime that makes those risks more transparent.”

A unified regulator makes sense.

The Press farewells Kevin Rudd:

Even by Australia’s brutal political standards, the dumping of Kevin Rudd was spectacular. Sudden, decisive and risky, it cast out the man who had brought his party into power and governed until recently with substantial voter support.

That Rudd at the beginning of the week seemed secure in his job but by the end of the week had so little party support that he could not contest the challenge is testament to a ruthlessness in Labor. The party has shown not a shred of loyalty to the man who won it a landslide election after years in the wilderness, who had done little wrong in government, and who had shaky polls but no worse than John Howard at the same part of the election cycle.

Loyalty is two ways. If you run Government through a inner circle of just four people, you alienate your colleagues.

The ODT focuses on debt:

The economy, it is fair to say, is very gradually improving after the short-lived recession, although the position so far as internal and external debt is concerned remains grave.

New Zealand, fortunately, is nowhere near in as bad a way as Britain, whose economy is practically in ruins, and where after last week’s budget, every household will be worse off as the new government tries to rebuild.

A vast range of cuts has been imposed to try to reduce government spending and pay off the colossal debt load.

New Zealand has dealt with similar problems in budgets of the past two years, but beyond the immediate future the economy faces what may turn out to be a difficulty of very serious proportions: a lack of capital. …

The kind of public service job creation the Clark government indulged in has also proved to be a serious drag on the economy: since 2004 more than half of all new jobs were in public administration, health, and education.

Over the same period 40,000 jobs disappeared from agriculture, horticulture, forestry, manufacturing, and transport – what some have described as the “earning side ” of the economy, the tradeable sector.

The tradeable sector went into recession in 2005 and only came out of it in 2009.

Treasury forecasts show steady economic growth of about 3% a year and that is an extremely modest number.

Clearly, though, there will be no new “value-added” jobs unless and until the confidence of businesses to invest and to employ is restored and investors are willing to risk their money.

Our collective failure to do that will inevitably mean all taxpayers will face what the British and other European disaster economies are now confronting.

We need investment and business confidence.

Kevin Rudd’s Downfall – The best video clips are here

Someone did this quickly. One of the better ones.

In a few hours it will be Prime Minister Julia Gilliard. iPredict have her at 96% and the bookies at $1.20.

The numbers are flocking to Gilliard and there is now pressure on Rudd not to force a ballot. Even the Treasurer has gone to her side.

So how did Kevin Rudd go from almost the most popular Prime Minister in a generation, to being the only Prime Minister ever to be rolled in their first term of office?

An essay last Thursday by Alexander Downer has some answers:

Members of the Federal Parliament all know each other; not necessarily well, but at least a little. Over the past 20 years, few, if any, MPs have been less popular than Kevin Rudd. All politicians are at the very least a trifle vain. They like to be the centre of attention, to be in the media, to be ‘consulted’. There is barely an exception. All of them think they are a bit better than they really are. Nearly all of them are ambitious, many furiously so. But on all of those counts, no one in recorded Australian political history has ever exceeded Kevin Rudd.

And this very much includes his own Cabinet and Caucus. There was respect but never popularity.

What MPs didn’t like about Rudd, the backbencher, and Rudd, the shadow minister, was his conceit and vanity. On 9 September 2004, an Islamist fanatic tried to blow up the Australian embassy in Jakarta. I was in Victor Harbor that day when the ambassador rang me directly on my mobile to tell me the terrible news. I told my staff we ought to go immediately to Jakarta and to take the head of the AFP, DFAT officials and intelligence people as well. We needed a VIP plane to load our officials in Canberra, fly to Adelaide to pick me up and push on to Jakarta. We could be there before bedtime.

I told John Howard of my plans and he said I ought to also take the opposition spokesman for foreign affairs, who happened to be Kevin Rudd; this was, after all, during the election campaign. Indirectly, I let Rudd know he was invited. I drove to my office to prepare for my departure. There was a message to call Rudd. He was furious. The f***ing VIP plane wasn’t going via Brisbane to pick him up. It f***ing had to. He ordered me to change its f***ing flight schedule.

I explained two things to him. First, the plane was too small to add him and his staffer unless we offloaded the AFP Commissioner or the intelligence officer. I wasn’t prepared to do that. Secondly, to travel via Brisbane would add hours to the journey. Instead, we would pay for a commercial flight for him.

This was not met with grace. A fusillade of abuse, much of it with sexual references, ensued, and then a demand that I tell him the flight schedules from Brisbane to Jakarta. ‘I am not,’ I crudely said, ‘your f***ing travel agent. DFAT will help you.’

The point is clear: people at the embassy had died, we needed to get the Indonesians onto the case to establish who the culprits were, we had to show support to the embassy staff at this time of crisis. It wasn’t about me and it certainly wasn’t about the shadow minister for foreign affairs, Mr Kevin Rudd. But for the member for Griffith it was about one thing: himself.

This is an incredibly telling story. It fits very much into the essay by the leftish David Marr on Rudd.

Marr is probably right. The secret of what Rudd is all about lies in his childhood. That’s probably true of all of us. Something happened then which made him determined one day to be famous. He has succeeded — spectacularly. But like all people who seek fame for themselves at the expense of others, his fame will eat him up. Fame fed with substance can make a person great. Fame alone will destroy you.

It has taken an incredible three years for the Australian public to realise who their national leader really is. I sat with a Labor luminary having a late-night drink in June 2008. He turned to me and said: ‘Mate, one day the Australian public will grow to hate Kevin Rudd as much as I do.’ That day has arrived.

It is going to be a fascinating day. I am spending it with various Federal Liberal Party people. For them it may be mixed emotions. They will be celebrating the fall of Kevin Rudd. It is no mean thing to put enough pressure on a Government (mind you a lot was self inflicted) that they roll the Prime Minister.

The downside for my Liberal friends is that Gilliard is not Rudd. She will have a honeymoon, and that could well last past the election. On the other hand she has to deal with some nasty messes left behind by Rudd such as the resources super tax.

What a day to be in Canberra. The coup against Rudd has taken place at record speed. The moment I heard the NSW Right had gone to Gilliard, I figured it was all over.

Rudd about to hold a press conference, so we will hear soon.

Rudd has confirmed Julia Gilliard has challenged him and he has called a vote for 9 am tomorrow.

Rudd is fighting to stay on, but I know from experience that once a leadership challenge goes to a vote, the leader almost always loses as they are judged so wounded they can not win a general election.

If Gillard wins, she would be wise to not try and govern for a few months as PM, but say she has asked the GG for an immediate election, and asked Rudd to carry on as caretaker PM until the election. She can look democratic by claiming she has been elected Labor leader, but now wants the Australian public to elect her Prime Minister.

John Key has just announced that Kevin Rudd will visit on 29th of June for talks on progressing the single economic market for Australia and NZ.

The PMs always meet up annually, but what is unusual is that Rudd has been invited to address the House of Representatives – the first foreign leader to do so.

This seems quite a smart move to me – emphasises the special relationship between the two countries.

Will try and pop into the gallery to see this.

The Sunday Telegraph reports:

SENIOR Labor MPs says the leadership is Julia Gillard’s for the taking before the election – if she wants it.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s control of the party has entered a treacherous phase, with Cabinet ministers and backbenchers canvassing the idea of changing leaders before this year’s federal election.

As Ms Gillard was forced yesterday to publicly deny she wanted the top job, Labor MPs described Mr Rudd as a “leader under fire” and said his prime ministership was “terminal”.

Rudd has never been that popular within his Caucus – respected but not popular. He appointed a Cabinet without going through faction heads. Personally this was a good thing to do, but it did create enemies.

I’ve just been reading the infamous Quarterly Essay on Rudd by David Marr. This is one one where he refers to the Chinese as trying to “rat fuck” Australia at the Copenhagen summit.

Marr points out that both Rudd and Gillard were seen as potential challengers to Kim Beazley, and that they met to decide who would challenge. Gillard actually had more MPs backing her, but Rudd refused to consider being her deputy, so she agreed to serve as his deputy.

She is unlikely to challenge, because she knows that will create more enemies for her. But there may come a point where for the good of the party, she is pressured into becoming Leader.

Senior Labor sources said Ms Gillard has always had the numbers to seize the leadership, but not necessarily the will to challenge for the top job.

“She would get it pretty easily right now, but I don’t think she wants it,” the source said.

I think she wants it, but on her terms. Labor are waiting for Tony Abbott to self destruct, but if he does not then they may panic and try to roll Rudd before the election.

However even then Gillard may prefer to let Labor lose, become Leader of the Opposition, and then try to become PM in her own right within three years.

Kevin Rudd is fighting for his political life with his u-turn on an ETS, and his proposed super mining tax both backfiring. A Nielsen poll just out has Labor at 47% on the two party preferred poll and the Coalition at 53%.

The super mining tax appealed to Labor. They thought everyone would support it, as only a dozen companies or so would be paying it. The tax would be a massive 40% of any profits above the risk free rate of return. Yes, how dare a company make a profit greater than what you can get by sticking your money in the bank.

But it has backfired massively. Western Australia especially has seen it as an attack on the entire state, plus (unlike NZ) many Australians know how important the mining sector is to Australia’s prosperity and have rejected the tax.

The Daily Telegraph reports:

KEVIN Rudd has downplayed reports he and his ministers treat staff like dogs as a near-record employee burnout of almost 60 per cent in just more than two years has been revealed.

Despite Mr Rudd pledging to tear up former prime minister John Howard’s hated WorkChoices, 262 ministerial staff – from a total of 444 positions – have departed since Labor came to office.

Three ministers have recorded staff turnover of more than 100 per cent, with Youth and Sport Minister Kate Ellis having 13 departures from a staff of 10. At least one was a part-time university student while several others left to have families.

The Prime Minister himself has lost 28 staff, with Government insiders describing his office as resembling a “transit lounge”.

Rudd is well known as being near impossible to work for. He dreams up crazy ideas and demands they are implemented within days, and has temper tantrums when they are not. His own colleagues resent his style, almost as much as his staff do.

But Mr Rudd said the high pressure of a political office meant it couldn’t be compared to the private sector.

“It’s a tough life. People often have to relocate, there are crazy hours, it’s very intense, people are on the phone wanting X, Y and Z done in a short period of time,” he told Fairfax radio today.

“But I go back to the simple fact: We are elected by the Australian people to do a job.”A staff working year is probably like a dog year, that is it’s probably worth seven years in normal life.

“So if folks stay with me for three or four years, that’s probably 28 or 30 years or more in actual time.”

This is spin. Jobs in Parliament are definitely tough with long hours and an ever changing array of issues. And MPs demands can be frustrating as travel and appointments often change at the last minute. This is why the turnover rate is higher than the normal 10% private sector.

However 60% over two years is very high for any Ministerial office, let alone the PMs Office. The PMs Office is sort of top of the food chain, and it has to be pretty bad for people to leave the office after just a year or two. Most people wait for an election.

Taking John Key’s office as a comparison, I think John has had only two staff leave in two years. One to go overseas and one to have a baby. So Rudd’s claim of a 60% departure rate being normal, is not the case.

Some former staff are privately seething at his management style, claiming he can fly off the handle at a moment’s notice.

Never good to have former staff slag you off. Most former staff of a PM stay ferociously loyal.

Brooklyn Group CEO Brian Russell also queried why Government advisers had left in droves.

`You shouldn’t be having 100 per cent turnover in any team. If you’ve got autocratic management, lack of direction – basic fundamentals – especially in a small group, people will leave,” he said.

Bingo.

AAP report:

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is in hot water with the governor of Alabama for his response to comedian Robin Williams’ “Australians are basically English rednecks” jibe.

Williams made the joke on the Dave Letterman TV talkshow in the US earlier in the week and Rudd, during a radio interview on Wednesday, hit back by recommending the comedian “spend a bit of time in Alabama before he frames comments about anyone being particularly redneck”.

Rudd has stuffed up quite majorly here.

First of all a Prime Minister doesn’t need to respond to a joke by Robin Williams on Letterman. You just look pompous and defesnive.

But secondly you don’t respond by insulting a state of another country. You’re not a comedian, you’re a head of government.

Rudd’s reference to Alabama and rednecks generated a terse response from Alabama governor Bob Riley.

“I’m not sure if Prime Minister Rudd has ever been to Alabama,” Alabama governor Bob Riley responded in a statement.

“If he has, he would know that Alabamians are decent, hard working, creative people.”

And to think Rudd used to be a diplomat.

The Herald reports:

Abbott has come up with a plan to tax big business – those earning more than A$5 million ($6.25 million) a year – to pay for a surprisingly generous compulsory leave scheme.

Under his proposal primary carers would be paid at their full rate of take-home pay up to a maximum income of A$150,000 a year ($187.5 million) for 26 weeks. Abbott estimates the scheme will cost about A$2.7 billion a year.

A rather desperate election bribe. First of all, taxing large businesses to pay for the entire costs is blatantly unfair. If it is deemed desirable to have paid maternity leave, then it should be funded by all taxpayers.

Secondly it is massive welfare for the rich. If you were on $40,000 you will get $20,000 maternity leave. If you were on $150,000 you will get $75,000.

Rudd’s scheme, due to be launched next January, pales by comparison. This scheme will pay the minimum wage of about A$544 a week to the primary carer for a maximum 18 weeks’ leave after the birth of a child.

It will cost an estimated A$260 million a year, paid out of consolidated revenue.

Rudd’s scheme seems far more sensible to me.

Not a good sign for Australia, if both parties are getting into a bidding war of spending money they don’t have.

The Herald reports:

This article in the National Times by a former departmental speech writer for the Rudd Government is a must read. Some extracts:

Around the same time a section meeting was called. Our boss arrived late, but in the best of moods. ”We’re under budget!” she announced proudly. The old-timers let out whoops of joy.

”What’s going on?” I asked someone quietly.

”We’re under budget,” they replied with a rare smile.

”Oh, so that’s good? You’ve saved money?”

”No, no,” her smile turned to ash as she gave me that pitying look I usually received when I asked a question. ”It means training.”

Our section was under-budget by hundreds of thousands of dollars, necessitating we blow all the unspent money before the end of the financial year. Unfortunately, ”training” did not mean I would finally get some training. ”Training” consisted of hastily booked, dubiously relevant conferences and courses, most of which were conveniently located a long way from Canberra.

Despite my short length of service, I was included in the spending free-for-all. I later found myself in a plush Sydney harbourside hotel with hundreds of dollars in unnecessary travel allowance – everything, including meals, flights and accommodation, was covered by the department. I was attending a conference on Web 2.0, a topic I was mildly interested in but which had nothing to do with my duties.

The rest of the office also enjoyed jetting around the country. Four staff members managed to book into the same four-day public relations event and, reportedly, a great time was had by all.

Unless one things NZ is magically immune from this, I wonder how much training happens here.

We were not the only ones wasting money. Associated with our section were those boffins who create public health campaigns, the ones that appear on television with increasing regularity: nights out turning into nightmares, measure your fat stomach, wash your hands – that kind of thing.

I was surprised to discover the minds behind these campaigns were not health professionals. They had backgrounds and degrees in marketing, communications and advertising, not medicine. Under their watch, the government became the No.1 spender on free-to-air television.

As was the case here with the last Government.

None of these events prepared me for what happened next. After remaining silent on the issue for many months, the Prime Minister suddenly took an interest in the nation’s health. I found out when a grim-faced boss herded us all together. ”The PM is going to make a health announcement and you have to organise it,” we were told.

”When’s it happening?”

”Monday.” (It was Friday afternoon.)

”When did we first learn about it?”

”Now.”

Rudd is infamous for dreaming up ideas and demanding they be implemented within days.

Young suits from the Prime Minister’s office stalked the wings of the announcement, roaring loudly into mobile phones. Their counterparts from the Health Minister’s office hovered in the background, looking miserable.

The Prime Minister’s office staff feared nobody and respected them less. The only time they shut up was when the Prime Minister himself was speaking. Any other speaker, including Roxon and the commission’s spokeswoman, could go to hell. One grabbed my pen from my hand and stormed off with it. I later asked for it back and was laughed at.

My colleagues were always fearful of the Minister’s office, but for the first time I was witnessing the force that terrified the MO staff themselves. Orders came down that all our ministers were to clear their calendars for the next six months – they were to become as visible to the media as possible. They were going on a consultation tour of the country.

Initially, there was little rhyme, reason or co-ordination to the process. A website was thrown up that looked ghastly when it first went live, so ghastly that the Prime Minister refused to promote it as had been planned. A team was banged together to run the site and to put up lots of pretty pictures of the government in consultation mode. The gossip was the Prime Minister’s attention had been caught by the Web 2.0 phenomenon, as had many Western leaders in the wake of Obama’s presidential campaign, and YourHealth.gov.au would be the first to jump on the bandwagon.

A Minister hears of something new and demands it be done – damn the cost.

Along with the tidal wave of events we suddenly had to organise, I was given a new duty: ensuring photographers were always present to capture our ministers nodding gravely as they consulted. There was no limit to the cost. Fortunate photographers around the country suddenly found themselves hired, whatever quote they supplied.

My last days at the department were a cavalcade of new staff, swept up from wherever they could be found amid the chaos generated by the YourHealth steam train. The entire project was developed backwards, necessitating constant adjustments. Money was thrown at local production companies to create sincere-looking website testimonials. Staff were ordered to use the site and vote on the polls to generate hits. I wandered through the disorganisation in a permanent state of bewilderment.

I can almost guarantee this is not the rare exception, but  quite frequent occurrence. It’s like when the PM suddenly decides a sound bite of carbon neutral sounds good, and they generate a workstream around it.

After four months, I walked away and did not bother telling anyone why.

I care about health dollars, although not enough to initially refuse that crazy job. Thanks to an ongoing medical condition, I’ve had need of the health system on occasion. My immediate family contains two doctors and three nurses. I’m anecdotally familiar with the state of our public hospitals and mental health system.

A few months before the department hired me, I spent eight agonising hours in emergency waiting for treatment for a chronic case of food poisoning. I was eventually diagnosed, pumped full of morphine, rehydrated intravenously and strapped to a bed in the emergency ward to recover overnight.

The next time I spend eight hours waiting in emergency, I will be thinking of unused speeches, cancelled events and weeks of wasted organisation and research. I will be thinking of expensive television advertising campaigns and T-shirts and golf balls with little slogans. I will be thinking of websites and a consultation process driven by photography. I will be thinking of ”training”.

Or we can believe the PSA and Labour that there is no savings to be made in Government.

The Herald reports:

Kevin Rudd would like to see the drinking age in Australia raised from 18 to 21 years.

The Prime Minister said he would prefer an increase, given a recent series of tragic accidents involving P-plate drivers.

Since the start of the year 12 teenagers have been killed in cars driven by P-plate drivers in New South Wales and Victoria.

In one crash that killed five teenagers in Melbourne the 19-year-old driver had a blood alcohol level almost four times the legal limit.

I love the logic here. Because some young Australians break the very serious laws about drink driving, Kevin Rudd thinks the solution is to lower the drinking age, as if that would make a difference.

The sort of people who drive pissed, are not going to change their behaviour because it is technically illegal to purchase the alcohol, as well as drive after drinking it. It won’t affect the problem drink drivers, but will criminalise a million or so young Australians.

I might be wrong, but I suspect Helen Clark hated that her first meeting with Barack Obama was having John Key introduce her as his predecessor, after Obama goes out of his way to say hi to Key.

We sometimes forget what a great reputation our country has overseas as a place to live:

Mr Obama had a friend living in New Zealand who had raved about the country praising its golf courses, skiing and lifestyle for families.

If Obama does visit at some stage, he’ll be a lot more popular than he is back home. UMR released a poll yesterday on NZers views of world leaders. The net positive ratings were:

1. Barack Obama +82% (88% favourable, 6% unfavourable)
2. Kevin Rudd +45%
3. Angela Merkel +15%
4. Nicolas Sarkozy +2%
5. Gordon Brown -1%
6. Silvio Berlusconi -16%
7. Vladimir Putin -19%

AAP report:

Mr Rudd joked that as the US is absorbed with its own policy debate on health reform he had had his own experience of “socialised hygiene”.

“I woke up this morning at the appropriate hour before some further breakfast organised for me by staff and then, only to encounter a queue, a line of people outside my bathroom, led by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Foreign Minister of NZ and most of our diplomatic staff,” Mr Rudd told a lunch in New York on Wednesday (NY time).

“So, if Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg is here, I would say this is an extreme way to treat our Kiwi cousins,” Mr Rudd said.

The story explained:

Prime Minister John Key was forced to go cap in hand to the residence of the Australian Ambassador to the UN for a wash this morning (Wednesday NY time) after water to his hotel was cut off.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd got more than he bargained for when he woke to find a queue of unwashed Kiwis waiting to use his bathroom.

In the true spirit of trans-Tasman cooperation Mr Rudd extended a cousinly hand to Mr Key in his hour of need.

Mr Rudd and his wife Therese Rein are staying at the residence of the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations near the UN building on the east side of Manhattan and were close at hand when the water was cut off at the hotel next door.

Dozens of people, including the New Zealand and other foreign delegations, along with members of the Australian diplomatic party and Mr Rudd’s staff were left without any water for several hours, as they woke up to get ready for another day at the UN.

I can see Rudd dining out on this for for quite a while!

Generally profane language from Prime Ministers can land them in trouble. But when they use it against their own colleagues, I suspect the public is far more approving. The details are:

The factional leaders had gone to see the Prime Minister in his Parliament House office to object to government plans to slash MPs’ printing allowances from $100,000 to $75,000 a year. The decision was in response to a report into parliamentary perks by the Auditor-General.

According to sources present, Mr Rudd said: “I don’t care what you f—ers think!”

Even better, he swore at MPs protesting against his reducing their perks. Definitely a poll bump on the way.

He then went on, singling out Senator David Feeney declaring, “You can get f—ed”, before asking, “Don’t you f—ing understand?”

I suspect the Senator now does.

An insightful column by Fran:

But with China poised to overtake the United States within a decade as the world’s largest economy, it is no surprise that the implications of China’s rapid economic rise were given considerable focus during New Zealand and Australia’s first joint Cabinet meeting in Sydney eight days ago.

Herald inquiries indicate Rudd went to considerable lengths to outline why the two Australasian countries should move closer together at a strategic level through maintaining “close foreign policy settings” during a lengthy overview he gave as co-chair of the joint Cabinet.

The issue barely rated a mention in the two prime minister’s joint press statements. But Herald inquiries indicate that Rudd strongly positioned the impact of China’s rise on Australasia during a lengthy strategic overview.

Several Cabinet Ministers from both sides privately credit the “risks based” analysis – above all other factors – as paramount in the Rudd Government’s decision to focus on New Zealand’s strategic utility to Australia, by moving to finalise single economic market negotiations by 2015. And to increase military co-operation to protect (if needed) supply lines between Australasia and the region during possible fractious times ahead.

This would explain why Australia has gone from luke warm to highly receptive on the move to a single economic market.

For most of our existence our location has been a barrier economically. In the next century, we may find being so close to Asia is a life saver. The US economy, and to a lesser degree the EU, could struggle to match Asian economic power in a few years.

Under this scenario, Australia – as a country with “middle power” pretensions – will increase its regional impact by drawing New Zealand further within its own strategic sphere of influence.

This is where NZ needs to be a bit careful. While I am fully supportive of closer economic ties with Australia, we must not lose our identity. NZ is generally held in higher esteem than Australia with most Asian countries – partly because we are non-threatening, but also because we have never been seen as the US Deputy Sheriff.

Rudd – who thinks deeply about strategic issues – believes that unlike previous downturns, Australia and New Zealand cannot rely on American consumers to quickly refuel global economic growth through another debt-fuelled spending binge. Both New Zealand and Australia thus needed to focus on how to sustain their respective economies.

Both prime ministers share the belief that it is in the countries’ interests to strongly brand Australasia as an investment destination focused on quality products and lifestyles, and, are concerned at the upcoming “war for talent” implied by changing demographics.

Key, in particular, sees a future where both nations will have to pay “near global price” to attract and retain highly-skilled people such as doctors, lawyers and engineers.

By drawing closer together the two “Europeans in Asia” will be able to more strongly position themselves as the Asian century develops.

This makes us closing the gap with Australia even more important. You want to keep doctors, lawyers and engineers? Well maybe then allowing mining on 0.0001% of the conservation estate is not the end of the world.

From Kevin Rudd’s Flickr account. John Key would have been a relieved man at the whistle.