Patrick Keneally and agencies
theguardian.com, Wednesday 24 September 2014
Former prime minister launches retaliatory offensive while announcing that he has landed a new job
Kevin Rudd was reacting to the publication of Julia Gillard’s memoir. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images
On the day that former prime minister Julia Gillard launched her memoir, My Story, the man she ousted, Kevin Rudd, has launched an retaliatory offensive, releasing a statement claiming that the book was a work of “fiction” and announcing that he had landed a new job chairing a global peace and security review.
In the statement released to news.com.au by Rudd’s media adviser, the former prime minister claims: “The Australian people have long reached their own conclusions about Ms Gillard’s relationship with the truth – from the coup to the carbon tax.
“They have also reached their own conclusions on Ms Gillard’s continuing efforts to reconstruct a justification after the event for her actions in June 2010, by trying to dress up personal political ambition as some higher purpose for the party and the government.”
The new job will see Rudd appointed as co-chair of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism (ICM), along with Norwegian foreign minister Borge Brende and Canadian foreign minister John Baird – a role that would add to his credentials for his long-held ambition to become UN secretary-general.
The ICM is a two-year program run by the International Peace Institute, which will examine the work of the United Nations and other multilateral bodies.
Rudd’s previously secret submission to the ALP’s election review panel, which described Gillard a “backstabber” lacking legitimacy, was also published today in the Australian.
The publication of the submission to the 2010 review, chaired by Steve Bracks, Bob Carr and John Faulkner, adds to the already substantial commentary about the period of Labor leadership rivalry sparked by Gillard’s memoirs.
In the submission, Rudd says claims by Gillard supporters that the coup was motivated by “national interest” and the government’s poor performance was an “entirely fabricated post-facto rationale for a leadership change that was driven in large part by political ambition”.
His submission also reportedly takes aim at the so-called “faceless men”, including Bill Shorten, who he claimed were “ripping the party apart”.
Kevin Rudd dismisses Julia Gillard’s book as a work of ‘fiction’ | World news | theguardian.com
