Where did it all go wrong for Kevin Rudd?
Six months after thrashing John Howard his approval rating was 70 per cent. He appeared to be a politician of supernatural skill, immune to the most finely reasoned criticism from analysts or opponents.
He called a 2020 Summit to invite new ideas. It was an event of Scandinavian, backpackerish charm. Everyone paid their own way to Canberra. The PM sat on the floor during a meeting. That was our Kevin. Can you imagine another PM sitting on the floor?
He ticked off the big boxes. Workplace agreements were over. He said Sorry and snookered the Opposition leader into being his “partner” as architect of the future of indigenous Australians. He spoke sternly to the Chinese. He talked of nation-building and invoked memories of Ben Chifley, a meticulous man capable of bold leaps of imagination that led to the Snowy Mountains scheme, post-war immigration, and the Holden.
His Treasurer delivered a first Budget with billions of dollars set aside for leaps of imagination.
Even his brief absence overseas made history, anointing Julia Gillard our first acting female PM.
Kevin 0 was aiming for greatness. Now his approval rating is 56 per cent.
The spell is broken. A series of small mistakes and stumbles added together have made our Magic Kevin look just a bit ordinary.
The worst of these mistakes was his part in the controversy over an exhibition of photographs by Bill Henson.
Henson is an artist who has been exhibiting for many years. There has always been debate about his work. Some people don’t like it much. Some do. That’s how it goes in the art world. Blind Freddy could have told the PM to hold his tongue. The arts community can bite back hard when it feels threatened. Since the police raided Roslyn Oxley’s gallery in Paddington there has been a long queue forming to defend Bill Henson from the slur of pornography and the implication of paedophilia. Cate Blanchett is among them. Even Malcolm Turnbull is among them. The case will never come to a court.
A courtroom is not an ideal place to settle matters of art. It is a great place to test character. Henson has nothing to fear from a trial. The only outcome would be humiliation for his detractors. Imagine the smile on the face of a defense barrister who could call Cate Blanchett as first witness.
To go back to the beginning, why did our PM feel obliged to comment at all? He is skilled enough to dodge a question if he wants to. He was invited to take a shot at an easy target and he fell for it. Did his instinct tell him that he could not go far wrong with a platitude about letting children be children? He went further than that. He got personal. In doing so he looked foolish and ill-informed.
What he said doesn’t matter now. That he said anything at all is astonishing. The Prime Minister of Australia unnecessarily made a comment about an exhibition of photographs which he had not seen. He saw only edited versions. He should have said he could not comment.
He could have said that he could not understand why he was being asked to comment. He could have said many things. He could have said that armed police do not belong in art galleries. Instead he took the easy way. Many people will not forget that.
Several years ago, when our Kevin was a humble shadow spokesperson for foreign affairs, I saw him at Watters gallery in Sydney speaking at the opening of an exhibition of works by a Chinese artist. The woman standing next to me sighed and said “Why can’t we have someone like him for Prime Minister?”
I could see what she meant. I never imagined it would happen. She was unusually prescient then. Now she thinks he is a worm like all the others.
That’s one lost vote. The PM and the “hard” men and women of Labor might want to think about that for a few minutes.
To halt his slide in the opinion polls, to recover any ground at all, the PM needs better briefing and advice. He needs someone who can whisper in his ear “Don’t touch this. There’s nothing in it for you. Keep your hands down when the cameras are on. When in doubt sit on the floor – you look cute that way.”
He needs a Blind Freddy, an adviser who can spot the obvious for him while his own mind is full of Chifleyesque visions for the future.
Meanwhile, when this ugly process is over, when the charges against Henson are dropped or a trial concluded, the Prime Minister should apologise to him. What would Chifley do?
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