1 week Ago By The Herald's View
The advent of another Donald Trump administration has united most politicians in the hope the friendship between Australia and the United States remains strong, but the unhinged furore surrounding our ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, suggests the former prime minister is a clear and present danger to the bilateral relationship. Kevin Rudd has deleted all his criticisms of Donald Trump from the internet. Credit: Artists The push to get rid of Rudd has been ignited by the posting of an image on X showing sand trickling through an hourglass in response to Rudd’s official US election statement by Trump senior adviser Dan Scavino.
Our US ambassador’s continuing employment prospects were raised last March when Brexit champion-turned-broadcaster/MP Nigel Farage told Britain’s GB News channel “our friends at Sky News Australia” requested he ask Donald Trump about Rudd, and the presidential hopeful unloaded: “I don’t know much about him. I heard he was a little bit nasty. I hear he’s not the brightest bulb .
.. But if, if he’s at all hostile, he will not be there long.
” After quitting parliament in 2013, Rudd, who trained as a diplomat, made critical remarks on Twitter about two American citizens: “Donald Trump is a traitor to the West. Murdoch was Trump’s biggest backer. And (Rupert) Murdoch’s Fox Television backs Putin, too.
What rancid treachery.” There was more: “The most destructive president in history. He drags America and democracy through the mud.
He thrives on fomenting, not healing, division. He abuses Christianity, church and Bible to justify violence. All aided and abetted by Murdoch’s Fox News network in America, which feeds this.
” Come the election result, Rudd erased his Twitter opinions. Some prime ministerial colleagues, including Tony Abbott , have sensibly backed Rudd to stay in the job. Malcolm Turnbull, who replaced Rudd as co-chair of the Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission group when Rudd went to Washington, attacked Murdoch’s acolytes: “This is revenge .
.. this is a campaign that News Corp kicked off, and they are running a vendetta .
.. The question for the Trump adulators in the right-wing media ecosystem in Australia is whether they want our representative in Washington to stand up for Australia, or join the ranks of the Trump sycophants.
” Turnbull is right. News Corp has been running hard on this for months, ramping up a sense of crisis to the point where it has created one. Media campaigns can be a force for good.
This one by News Corp is a disgrace. With expert credentials on the US and China, Rudd was appointed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in 2022 in full knowledge of his attacks on Trump and Murdoch. Now, News Corp’s outrage has apparently convinced Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to shift slightly from qualified support to noting Albanese’s “captain’s pick” had put the Labor government “in a difficult position”.
But surely the US faces challenges greater than Rudd’s unkind observations. Only a small-minded nation would withdraw an ambassador for fear the diplomat might be unacceptable to an incoming administration. Hard-headed diplomacy is required, not craven sycophancy.
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