Judith Ireland Breaking News Reporter
June 7, 2013
Labor MP Kevin Rudd during Question Time. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Earlier this week, Joel Fitzgibbon, the member for Hunter and Jokes A Go-Go, made major fun of the fact that Labor MPs were given talking points.
The ''revelation'' that HQ sent out lines every day cast considerable doubt on how much MPs believed it when they said things like, ''Polls come and go, but the only poll that matters is on election day.''
But for all Fitzgibbon's monkeyshine, at least a few shreds of plausible deniability remained. There was always the chance that by happy coincidence, Labor MPs actually agreed with the talking points.
Then, on Thursday, came the news that two backbenchers had begun packing up their offices.
To be fair, Alan Griffin (Rudd's numbers honcho) said he was ''working to win; I still think I can'' - but didn't want to come back to Parliament if he lost Bruce.
And Daryl Melham declared he was ''working his guts out'' but wanted to save taxpayers the three days' packing if Banks fell to the other side.
Then again, actions can shout pretty loud. And nothing shouts, ''My chances of re-election have come and gone'', like putting the contents of one's filing cabinet in a box.
With the Labor caucus more dispirited than the bar at the end of a Jay Gatsby party, there was only one thing for it: a dispatch from Kevin.
As Australia marked 100 days until the federal election, the former prime minister, former foreign minister and current member for Griffith availed himself of an interview on 7.30.
The very day after Rudd instructed his colleagues to pull their heads in; Rudd's head graced the prime-time airwaves.
''My job like every other Labor member of Parliament is to get out there and argue the government's case for re-election,'' he explained, before railing against those predicting eye-watering defeat for the ALP.
''It is completely wrong for people in our national political life to be on about constructing alibis for defeat.''
He also opined on a ''landmark'' summit between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping and hooked into Tony Abbott with the sort of precision relish one might reserve for a meat pie in a Michelin-starred restaurant.
''Mr Abbott is now saying after 20 years in Parliament, 19 years as one of the most extreme right-wing conservative leaders, or politicians, that the Liberal Party has thrown up … he's suddenly become a policy moderate,'' Rudd said, before a mini-pause.
''Well, you can wear pale blue ties to assuage people up to some point but a leopard never changes its spots.''
No, Kevin. They really don't.
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