I've heard worse....

That wasn't the rumour that I've heard about Tony Abbott, Mr Marr. Did you dig deep enough?

Some quotes from the archives

Leadership is always a lonely race. Anyone honest about their reflections on that reaches the same conclusion....I’ve always just been a person who believes in rowing his own race, that is, doing what you believe to be the right thing, doing it with vigour, doing it with conviction and doing it with determination.
- former Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd quoted by David Marr in "Power trip: the political journey of Kevin Rudd." Quarterly Essay. Number 38, p. 40.



Kevin has worked hard at becoming normal. He’s come close but I don’t think he’ll ever quite get there, But I don’t think you want a Prime Minister to be normal, do you?
– Wayne Goss, former Premier of Queensland, quoted in the book Inside Kevin07: The people, the plan, the prize. by Christine Jackman.



How could you say someone like us is boring?
- Kevin Rudd being interviewed by Rove McManus on the Rove TV show, September 2008

A political quote to ponder

"Laura, just remember it wasn't the polls that were the reason Kevin was done over. It wasn't because we were worried that he would lose. It was that we were worried he might win and then we'd be stuck with him!"

- an unnamed ALP frontbencher quoted by Laura Tingle on page 77 of her correspondence in Quarterly Essay 39 regarding David Marr's essay "Power trip" in Quarterly Essay 38.

And not a single f*** was given that day about the wishes or rights or opinions of Australian voters, who had installed Rudd as PM in a landslide election just a few years earlier.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Correspondence%3a+Laura+Tingle.-a0237305635

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=T3hqtbdK_LMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false