George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

It is a little more than three years since the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Kevin Rudd, planted himself in front of some rural fencing against the beautiful background of the Nambour countryside. Looking straight down the barrel of a camera, he read from a script prepared for him by an advertising agent, and he said: ‘When it comes to being an economic conservative, it is a badge I wear with pride.’ Several months later, when he delivered the Labor Party’s policy speech for the 2007 election, the line that resonated in that speech—the one line everybody will remember, though we remember it these days for a very different reason than we did then—contained the words ‘this reckless spending must stop’.

Mr Kevin Rudd and his team were elected by the Australian people on 24 November 2007 to be the government of Australia because the Australian people trusted them. They did not know very much about Kevin Rudd at the time, but they knew that he was a fresh face. They knew that he was a glib, articulate and, evidently, intelligent public spokesman for the Labor Party. They put their trust in him. They trusted that he was as good as his word. After he was elected, he maintained that he was a politician who could be trusted. When he spoke at the Australian War Memorial in March 2008, only five months after he was elected, Mr Kevin Rudd said:

We’re going to adhere to the integrity of the budget process but all working families ... will be protected by our Government in the production of that budget and we will honour all of our pre election commitments.