Until the Goss government came to power in Queensland poker machines were limited to casinos and one of the small excitements available amidst suburban domestic boredom was making a bus trip over the border to the Terranora Lakes Country Club where poker machine gambling could be done legally.
When Goss left power, poker machines were more plentiful than cane toads after a thunderstorm.
And who ran the Goss government? Well, Goss, obviously, but backed-up by his senior mandarin, Kevin Rudd. Rudd’s control over the public service was so centralised and locked-down that it was said that you couldn’t sharpen a pencil in the public service but Kevin Rudd would know the weight of the shavings by close of business that day.
This makes Rudd’s campaign “du jour” on poker machines a little risky for him. As the graphs below demonstrate, growth was explosive, and it occurred mostly on his watch. Where are the memos demonstrating that this happened over Rudd’s dead body, and if they don’t exist, when did he realise the error of his ways?
Rudd appears to me to be currently running the risk of over-promising. If something is too good to be true, it generally is.
So, can Kevin Rudd do a Peter Beattie and say he was sorry and is changing his ways?
And will this bit of very relevant information get traction?
Comment by Jennifer — September 12, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Fair enough but
1. he was not an elected representative but a public servant implementing the wishes of his political masters.
2. as a current elected representative he should be judged by what he says/does since election, particularly with regard to policy.
3. By this logic the ALP candidate in Eden monaro (Mike kelly?) and the ALP candidate in Stirling (?) should be criticised because they served in Iraq when this was against ALP policy.
Comment by barney — September 14, 2007 @ 12:08 pm
Barney, you’re a reliable ALP footsoldier, but way off the mark when you suggest that what Rudd has done in the past when he’s been in power has no bearing on what he will do now.
You’re also way off the mark if you think he was some sort of passive vessel for government wishes in Queensland. Anyone who paid any attention knows that Rudd was more powerful than most ministers. He was a political appointment and he had a political mandate, part of which was to run the politics of the government.
He may well have been against the expansion of pokies, but it’s a question that ought to be put to him.
As for Mike Kelly in Eden Monaro, do you think he would have been pre-selected if he wasn’t an Iraq war “whistle blower”? So while his role in the past is relevant Rudd’s apparently isn’t. Pull the other one.
Comment by Graham Young — September 16, 2007 @ 11:45 am