It is now clear that Kevin Rudd is not leading a Labor Party. He is channeling a dead man while he is still alive.

He is Howard’s Mini-Me, iSuck 2.0.

Australia, it is now perfectly evident, is ruled by the Laberal Party.

Labor was elected by a distraught and shamed electorate to restore humanity, decency and morality to Australian politics, to restore civil society; particularly, to unwind the horrors of the Howard junta’s refugee terrorism. Labor has had an absolute mandate to formulate policies, and to act, differently from the Liberals in this. Instead Rudd is terrified by the small- and narrow-minded creatures of the right. He formulates his policies in their favour, addressing their concerns and completely fails to face his own natural electorate, which he takes for granted. Big Mistake. His policies are an almost perfect clone of Howard’s, Ruddock’s, Vanstone’s and Andrews’.

Politicians all over Australia are telling each other to stop “playing politics” with people’s lives, or the environment, or whatever. For fuck’s sake, politics is their business! Whatever they do or say: IT IS POLITICS. Gravel-voiced Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism, Ferguson, playing desperate politics in his (and waste-of-space-Garrett’s) shame and embarrassment, today tells Bob Brown, in the wake of the massively misjudged and mismanaged PTTEP fiasco, to “stop playing politics with the environment”. WHAT?

Rudd is playing politics and nothing else. He uses the exact language of the Howard regime (“unlawful immigrants”) to describe humans, refugees, whose quest for asylum is prima facie perfectly legal under international law. Only after their claims have been tested in a court of law can any judgement be made that any of the refugees have arrived “unlawfully” and to suggest otherwise betrays, firstly, a lack of understanding of (or respect for) the law and, secondly, a nauseating eagerness to placate the rabid and ignorant right. He has abrogated any position of political and moral leadership in the debate; a position which, with his election victory and his personal and party popularity, was all his to assume. He has been handed the golden opportunity to be a Great Man, a Wise Leader, a true Australian Statesman, in his handling of this matter and he has blown it off for petty, short term political gain.

And he does seem to long to be thought a Great Man in international affairs. Sadly, he is acting like a very small and immature one in his childish eagerness to please everyone but those for whose lives he could really make a difference.

[tags]Australian politics, politics, politics and government, government, Rudd, Howard, Ruddock, Vanstone, Andrews, Liberal, Labor, refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants, unlawful immigrants, boat people, migration, Martin Ferguson, oil, oil drilling, PTTEP, environment, Garrett, West Atlas, Montara, values, political values, Australian values, environmental values, ethics, humanity, morals, principles, standards, cost, worth[/tags]