The Coalition have launched a campaign to neutralize Kevin Rudd, who clearly, and personally, threatens their ten-year domination of the Australian federal state apparatus. First came the ludicrous beat-up around Brian Burke. Clearly, the Coalition's muck-rakers had been out in force and had dug this up. It still seems to have absolutely no substance to it, but of course the principle of mudslinging is that some of it sticks, regardless of its provenance. And now this. Suddenly, a Queensland family are up in arms about Rudd's alleged defamation of them. One wonders why they had kept silent about it for so long? Perhaps it's only now that the National Party put them up to making a fuss. Quite why the reputation of their father is so important in all this, when he is dead and Rudd has never mentioned him or them by name, well . . . Rudd of course was all of 11 when the events concerned happened, so obviously one should expect crystal-clarity in his recollections. But it seems to be even more serious than that, in that this piece of muck seems to be without substance: at least in the linked SMH piece, there is not one iota of contradiction between Rudd's remarks and the 'other version' of events – the two are entirely in sync! Rudd says that his family were given notice mere weeks after his father's funeral, but this in no way implies that he was evicted at that time. Moreover, the 'other story' explicitly claims that the Rudds were not evicted, but their own story contradicts this, since they claim that the Rudds were only at liberty to remain in the property for a fixed period. To distinguish between terminating someone's residence in a property and evicting them is hair-splitting, if not downright delusional.


I hope that Australian electors see through these stories to the desperate and underhanded force behind them, and react with redoubled determination to remove these people from office.

Update: Yes.