PM's big brother says Labor can't win
Thursday, July 11, 2013 » 09:32am
Kevin Rudd may be gathering a new band of Labor true believers but his big brother is not one of them.
Mr Rudd's older brother, Greg, says federal Labor is heading for a disastrous election defeat, despite changing leaders, and must 'die' before it can be a force again.
Greg Rudd, a former lobbyist and now Independent Senate candidate for Queensland, says Labor rank-and-file members and voters are unsure what the ALP stands for.
'Labor is going to have a very bad defeat,' Mr Rudd has told the Nine Network's The Bottom Line program.
'But I think Labor has to die before it can grow, before it can rebuild.'
Kevin Rudd's return to the Prime Ministership has sparked a Labor rebound in the polls, with party supporters now believing they have some chance of re-election.
Greg Rudd says his brother is used to hard knocks, and coming back from them.
He recalled that after his first defeat as a Labor candidate in 1996, Kevin remained adamant he wanted to be Prime Minister one day.
'I said, You've got plenty of time ... work your arse off, get down to Sydney and become one of them because to get anywhere you'll need their (NSW Labor power-brokers) support',' he said.
The elder Rudd puts Kevin's determination down to the hard time he gave him as a kid.
'My sister often says that any indiscretions that Kev may have shown later on in life are largely due to me using him as a punching bag as a kid growing up,' he said.
Greg Rudd, who was a former advisor in the Hawke-Keating Labor Government, said former Prime Minister, Paul Keating - who won the 'true believers' election against John Howard in 1993 - had been wary of his brother.
'I remember Keating actually said to the Foreign Affairs Minister. Gareth Evans: 'Gareth, can't you bloody give Rudd some sort of job to get him out of the country'.
'So I said to Kevin: 'They already have a perception of you within the caucus and that is that they find you a bit hard to deal with'.
'So I said: 'You need to get the people of Australia to get you on side as well as mend bridges with your own caucus.''
Asked what his brother needed to do differently now, Greg Rudd cited the example of Bob Hawke.
'Hawkey had plenty of people that hated his guts,' he said.
'But Hawkey knew how to bring people with him and when he had cabinet meetings he would let everyone spruik and then he would summarise and then collectively they would make a decision.
'Kevin has to do more of that and be less of a person who does all the talking.'
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