{"id":28334,"date":"2019-11-28T20:28:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T12:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=28334"},"modified":"2023-10-31T01:49:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T17:49:37","slug":"kevin-rudd-wants-the-last-word-justine-landis-hanley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/kevin-rudd-wants-the-last-word-justine-landis-hanley\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Rudd wants the last word – Justine Landis-Hanley"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/h1>\n

Last week Crikey<\/em> received a strongly worded letter from the former prime minister. But it turns out we weren’t the only ones on his mailing list.<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
 <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Image: AAP\/Dan Peled) Editor: Filter applied<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kevin Rudd seems to want to have the last word lately, having spent the past week writing letters to editors across the globe defending his former government.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Friday, <\/span>Crikey<\/span> <\/em>received and published <\/a>a letter<\/a> from Rudd responding to<\/span> an article by reporter Chris Woods<\/a> that canvassed the attempts of various politicians to spin or finger-point their way out of the climate crisis. The article made reference to a quote from Rudd that blamed the \u201cGreen Party\u2019s political opportunism in 2009-10\u201d<\/em> for Australia\u2019s lack of an emissions trading scheme.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Rudd, to put it mildly, was not pleased.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe on the centre-left who are committed to climate action have never let up on this fight,\u201d<\/em> he wrote. \u201cBut what Woods seems to suggest is that, while we are fighting the conservatives for an actual policy outcome, we should lie down and accept the Greens making that task harder by flinging mud at us like cowards. How preposterous.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This came a day after<\/span> Rudd wrote to <\/a>The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> to argue that criticism by NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet of Labor\u2019s stimulus during the global financial crisis was unfair. \u201cFormer World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz \u2014 a Nobel laureate \u2014 said it was \u2018one of the best-designed Keynesian stimulus packages of any country\u2019,\u201d<\/em> Rudd wrote. \u201cTreasurers, even state treasurers, are supposed to know what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then on Saturday, the UK\u2019s The Independent<\/em> published<\/span> Rudd\u2019s response<\/a> to a article likening Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s communications plan to his government\u2019s NBN. Of the latter, he wrote that \u201ccosts have spun out of control after the totally botched \u2018redesign\u2019 by the conservatives, at the behest of Rupert Murdoch\u201d<\/em>, before declaring that comparing Australia\u2019s experience to Corbyn\u2019s plan was \u201cfacile in the extreme\u201d.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And on Sunday, US democratic socialist magazine Jacobin<\/em> published a<\/span> letter from Rudd<\/a> responding to an article alleging he had been scared off of an emissions trading scheme by then-opposition leader Tony Abbott\u2019s climbing approval rate. The author of the article, Rudd wrote, was \u201ctotally wrong about my record on climate change,\u201d<\/em> adding that \u201cthe option of a double-dissolution poll to help force the legislation through parliament remained a viable option for our government, right up to the day that Julia Gillard and her co-conspirators drew their knives\u201d.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t the first time Rudd has taken to a media outlet\u2019s editorial section to set his record straight. Even before last week\u2019s quartet of letters, \u201cKevin Rudd, New York\u201d has had a number of missives published in Australian newspapers.<\/span><\/p>\n