Rage Powering Kevin Rudd on His Journey
Kevin Rudd’s “angry heart” is the subject of an extraordinary new essay on the making of the Prime Minister, which asks what drives his ambition and comes to a startling conclusion: that he is “a politician with rage at his core”.
Written by journalist, biographer and leading left-wing intellectual David Marr, Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd, traces the rise of Mr Rudd from his childhood to his ascension to former Queensland premier Wayne Goss’s right-hand man, his years as a diplomat and his lonely rise through Labor ranks with few friends in caucus.
“Millions of words have been written about him since he emerged from the Labor pack half-a-dozen years ago, but Rudd remains hidden in full view,” writes Marr.
The devastating conclusion of Power Trip, following a barefoot stroll on a beach at Mackay in Queensland with the Prime Minister and the revealing confrontation that follows, is that the secret of his success is his incredible emotional resilience forged in a difficult childhood, but with an angry core.
It’s an anger documented first in the Marr essay during the dark days of the Prime Minister’s attempts to broker a deal on climate change at last year’s Copenhagen talks.
“Those Chinese f . . kers are trying to rat-f . . k us,” Rudd told journalists and aides, according to Marr.
