“Ambassador Rudd’s intervention exposes the potential problem of a former prime minister as Australia’s representative in such a sensitive post,” writes “The Gadfly” columnist ROBERT MACKLIN.

AUSTRALIA’S ambassador in Washington, Kevin Rudd, says Australia must remain “rock solid” with the US in its support for Israel in the war with the militant Hamas leadership of the Moslem Palestinians in Gaza. 

He was speaking last week at an American Australian Association defence dialogue and was reported at length by Farrah Tomazin in “The Sydney Morning Herald”.

Kevin was just getting started. It was also Australia’s “responsibility”, he said, to be similarly “rock solid” with America’s policy towards Ukraine and “the threat of China in the Indo-Pacific”. That pretty much covers the global hot spots. DFAT can take a well-deserved vacation.

No doubt there are some members of the Australian cabinet – and even more in Peter Dutton’s shadow cabinet – who would applaud his sentiments. 

However, I suspect Foreign Minister Penny Wong was not best pleased. 

Rudd’s intervention exposes the potential problem of a former prime minister as Australia’s representative in such a sensitive post. 

It was Kevin Rudd, you will recall, who appointed Anthony Albanese as his deputy prime minister during Rudd’s second term in The Lodge. That’s when he replaced Julia Gillard to “save the furniture” in 2013.

So when Kevin indicated his interest in the Washington post, it was not in Albo’s nature to decline. What he didn’t realise, I suspect, is the fierce Rudd ambition that will not be assuaged until he reaches the post of his deepest dreams: secretary general of the United Nations.

He has harboured it for many years. I first stumbled upon it in one of several very long interviews I did with him in 2007-2008 in researching and writing “Kevin Rudd: The Biography”. We were coming to the end of an extended conversation when I asked him whom he respected most among his political predecessors as Labor leaders. His answer was unequivocal: “HV Evatt,” he said. 

I was stunned. “Doc” Evatt was a disaster; under his leadership the party split and gave the coalition a free electoral run for a decade. But Kevin was serious: “I think he should properly be revered in terms of his Foreign Ministry achievements,” he said.

These were, essentially, his role in framing the UN Charter in the San Francisco conference of 1945; ironically, a failed attempt to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab States with Greater Jerusalem under international control; and his support for Indonesian independence.   “He may not have been the most attractive person to work with,” Kevin said, “but he was intellectually formidable and a person of achievement.”

Now, who does that remind you of?

It came as no surprise when Kevin headed for America after his 2013 defeat, nor when he attached himself to Hilary Clinton’s campaign for the 2016 presidential election. He knew that if he were to achieve his aim, Washington DC was the place to be, and the closer to the Oval Office the better.

Alas,Trump trumped that attempted finesse, but Kevin bided his time, casting his net across the movers and shakers that only America could provide. And then, voila! Labor returns to power and Albo has the final say in the appointment he prayed for. 

Penny Wong was rightly proud of the “nuanced” policies she created in dealings with her corresponding ministers in the three areas where ambassador Rudd chose to replace them with the American position. 

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

robert@robertmacklin.com