Just a politician

Kevin Rudd has shown the resolution to that age old riddle "what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object". Clearly, the answer is that there is no such thing as an irresistible force, as demonstrated by the inability of any force to separate our Prime Minister from a television camera. (Or perhaps I got that wrong, and there is an irresistible force: that which draws Kevin into the orbit of the nearest camera. You choose.)

Yesterday, after the 2020 Kevin Summit, I saw him on both Sunrise and The 7.30 Report.

On the latter, he was clearly in disingenuous politician mode:

KEVIN RUDD: .... For the Government, and remember for the 11 years or 12 years that the Howard Government was in office, the opportunity for a top down review of the entire taxation system was there. Instead they want for partial activity on consumption tax, and a partial activity on business tax. And business regulation.

KERRY OBRIEN: I think you'd have to acknowledge, I don't want to get bogged down in this, that embracing the consumption tax is one of the biggest single tax reforms in this country's history?

KEVIN RUDD: I would disagree with that. I think it's a different form of taxation but when you come to the overall impact of income tax, of company tax, personal income tax, company tax, indirect taxes, the transaction taxes of the States, and the overall effect of the combined taxation system, measured against global tax competitiveness, previous Government didn't do anything of the sort.

Of course, Kerry didn't press Kevin on this. (There remain very, very few occasions when Kerry O'Brien has shown him any aggression at all.) But, one would have thought these follow up questions might have been appropriate:

"You do recall, however, that the GST was intended by the Howard government to have a bigger effect than it eventually did, eg by removal of stamp duty, but political compromise prevented that?"

"Do you still stand by your assessment of GST as a "fundamental injustice"?

"Does your pre-election insistence on their being no GST increase under your government make a 'top down' review of taxes something of a pointless exercise, if you are going to cordon off that possibility?"

But instead Kerry went off tangent onto the completely out of the blue matter of whether Rudd liked "Advance Australia Fair". Nothing like pressing the serious issues, hey Kerry?