Kevin Rudd: Twice Prime Minister
Oct 2014 · Melbourne Univ. Publishing
Ebook
404
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
It was a very different Kevin Rudd who returned to office in 2013. Kevin 07 was a fresh face and a new image: the convivial, Mandarin-speaking nerd who seemed so different from past leaders and who held so much potential. By 2013 Rudd retained some of his popularity but none of his novelty. The Opposition could say nothing derogatory about him that his colleagues had not already said. A series of policy grenades had to be defused. His second term was to be short, brutal and nasty. Yet, despite his defeat, Kevin Rudd was an unusual Labor leader and prime minister. Political scientist and biographer Patrick Weller spent several years observing and talking to Rudd and the people around him to explain how one person came to the job and sought to meet its demands. Weller takes us back to Rudd's boyhood in Nambour, son of a poor Queensland dairy farmer; to a member without a faction who led a bitterly factionalised party; to the only federal Labor leader to win a majority since Paul Keating in 1993; and to only the second prime minister since 1914 to be sworn in for a second time. This book has the advantage of interviews in 2008 and 2009 with ministers who were then supporters but who became diehard enemies. Weller also had the benefit of unique access to the Prime Minister's Office. His biography is a revealing account of the man who became prime minister - twice.
About the author
Patrick Weller AO is a graduate of Oxford and the Australian National University. He has been professor of politics at Griffith University since 1984 and is now in the School of Government and International Relations. His areas of research are Australian politics and comparative institutions. He is the author of First Among Equals (1985), Malcolm Fraser: Prime Minister (1989), Australia's Mandarins (2001), Cabinet Government in Australia (2009), and co-author of Westminster Compared (2009), Inside the World Bank (2009) and Learning to be a Minister (2010). He is currently writing a comparative study of prime ministers in Westminster systems.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
