Kevin Rudd
From Conservapedia
| Kevin Michael Rudd | |
|---|---|
| Party | Australian Labor Party |
| Prime Minister | |
| From | 3 December 2007 |
| To | |
| Succeeded | John Howard |
| Preceded | — |
| Labor Party leader | |
| From | 2007 |
| To | |
| Succeeded | Kim Beazley |
| Preceded | — |
Kevin Rudd is the Prime Minister of Australia, and leader of the federal parliamentary wing of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). At the federal level, the ALP won the 24 November 2007 election after 11 years of John Howard's Liberal-National coalition government.
Contents |
Public Service and Political career
From 1981-1988 Rudd served in the Department of Foreign Affairs, mostly posted overseas at the Australian embassies in Stockholm, Sweden and later in Beijing, China.
In 1988, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Labor Opposition Leader in Queensland, Wayne Goss. When the Labor Party won office in 1989, he became Chief of Staff to the Premier. In 1992, Goss appointed him Director-General of the Office of Cabinet. When the Goss government lost office in 1995, Rudd became a Senior China Consultant in the accounting firm KPMG Australia. He continued in this role while unsuccessfully contesting for election to the federal electorate of Griffith at the 1996 federal election, which he also contested at the 1998 election and won. Rudd served as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs (2001-2005).
In December 2006, Rudd became Leader of the Opposition after deposing the previous leader of the ALP, Kim Beazley, in a leadership ballot. Since that time, he has enjoyed unprecedented public popularity having campaigned successfully on issues such as the environment and climate change, education and industrial relations policy.
During the 2007 election campaign, Rudd was accused of copying some of his policies (in particular economic policies) from his more conservative predecessor, John Howard, in a bid to win office, believing that the electorate found those policies appealing.
The ALP won the election on 24 November 2007, and Rudd was soon affirmed as the leader of the parliamentary wing and therefore Prime Minister elect. The new federal Cabinet was sworn in by the Governor General of Australia on 3 December 2007.
Prime Minister of Australia
Among Rudd's first acts as Prime Minister was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, something Howard had refused to do for economic reasons. Additionally, Rudd made a formal parliamentary apology to the "Stolen Generation", a large group of indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their community in the first half of the 20th century. While there is continued dispute among historians over whether the "Stolen Generation" existed, the Opposition gave its support to the apology. Polls taken since the election show the ALP holding a commanding lead in the polls under Rudd's leadership, with Rudd leading opposition leader Brendan Nelson by 70% to 9% in the "preferred Prime Minister" rating (leading the press to dub Nelson as "Mr. Nine Percent").[1]
Personal life
Rudd grew up in a house steeped in conservative politics. His father was a dairy farmer on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, and member of the Country Party. After his father was killed in a car accident, when Rudd was 11 year old, the family was forced to leave the farm. Rudd joined the Labor Party at age 15.
For a time he boarded at Marist College Ashgrove in Brisbane. He was dux of his state high school at Nambour, then went on to study at the Australian National University in Canberra, the national capital, gaining First Class Honours in Arts (Asian Studies), majoring in Chinese language and history, became proficient in Mandarin, and acquired a Chinese alias, Lù Kèwén (the latter a similar sound to his given name, Kevin.)
Rudd met his future wife, Therese Rein, at a meeting of the Australian Student Christian Movement while studying at university. He was then attending a Uniting church. They married in 1981 at St John's Anglican Church in Canberra, and have three children.
Rudd has attended the Anglican church with his wife and family, without formally taking up membership[2]. He is credited with being an active member of the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, attending not only lectures but also Bible studies. He is said to carry a Bible when he travels.
Rudd has given various speeches about his faith, and quotes the German theologian and martyr to the anti-Nazi cause, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as his hero[2].
References
- ↑ Mr. 9% - Brendan Nelson's parlous poll position Fairfax Digital, 19 February 2008, accessed 2 March 2008
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 More than just a light on the hill, Fairfax Digital, 22 December 2007, accessed 27 December 2007
External Links
| Australian Prime Ministers | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Edmund Barton (1901) Alfred Deakin (1903, 1905, and 1909) | Stanley Bruce (1923) James Scullin (1929) | Francis Forde (1945) Joseph Chifley (1945) | Malcolm Fraser (1975) Robert Hawke (1983) |
