Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd (born September 21, 1957, Nambour, Queensland, Australia) is a diplomat and former politician from Australia who served as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP; 2006–10; 2013) and prime minister of Australia (2007–10; 2013). He also served as Australia’s ambassador to the United States (2023– ).

Early life and education

Rudd grew up on a farm in Eumundi, Queensland. Politically active from his youth, he joined the ALP in 1972. That year he wrote to newly elected ALP Prime Minister Gough Whitlam for advice on how to become a diplomat. Perhaps surprisingly, Whitlam personally responded to the 15-year-old Rudd, telling him to attend university and to focus on Asian languages. Whitlam was one of the first major Western politicians to meet with the Chinese Communist government, and he made engagement with Beijing a major focus of his foreign policy. Whitlam’s words and actions had an obvious effect on Rudd. Rudd attended the Australian National University in Canberra, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Asian studies (1981) and became fluent in Mandarin.

From 1981 to 1988 he served in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, holding embassy posts in Stockholm and Beijing. He left the department to become chief of staff for Queensland opposition leader Wayne Goss—a position he retained after Goss became premier of Queensland in 1989. Rudd served as director general of the state cabinet office from 1992 to 1995. Entering the private sector, he worked for two years as a senior consultant for the accounting firm KPMG Australia.

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Political career

Rudd was first elected to the federal House of Representatives—as the member for Griffith, Queensland—in 1998 and was twice reelected (2001 and 2004). In Parliament he held a series of positions that gave him increasing responsibility within the Labor Party. After the 2001 election, in which the coalition led by Prime Minister John Winston Howard of the Liberal Party secured a strong working majority, Rudd was appointed shadow minister for foreign affairs. Frequently appearing in televised interviews and on political talk shows, Rudd became known as a vocal critic of the Howard government’s handling of the Iraq War. He was given the additional shadow ministry portfolios of international security in 2003 and trade in 2005. At the ALP caucus held on December 4, 2006, he was chosen party leader, defeating former head Kim Beazley by a vote of 49–39.

In 2007 Rudd increased his calls for Howard to set a date for the next federal elections and urged the prime minister to meet him in face-to-face debates. Rudd—who was riding a wave of popular support at the same time that Howard’s voter-satisfaction ratings were dropping—promised to bring a new leadership style to Australian politics. He called for a clear-cut exit strategy for Australian forces in Iraq, and he criticized Howard for recent rises in interest rates. In addition, Rudd stressed the importance of improving health services. To that end, he announced a comprehensive public health reform plan that he vowed to set in motion early in his administration if he was elected prime minister.

Prime ministership

In the November 2007 elections, the ALP easily defeated Howard and the Liberal Party. Rudd was sworn in as prime minister on December 3, 2007. Following through on a campaign promise, he formally apologized to the Australian Aboriginal peoples in February 2008 for abuses they had suffered under earlier administrations.

Rudd made climate change a centerpiece of his administration, calling it the “greatest moral challenge of our generation” and pushing for adoption of a carbon emissions trading scheme. He negotiated a deal with Malcolm Turnbull of the opposition Liberal Party to secure passage of the bill in the Senate. However, Turnbull faced dissent within his own party that led to his ouster and replacement by Tony Abbott, an opponent of the emissions trading scheme, and the bill was defeated in the Senate in December 2009. Because of this and other policy setbacks, Rudd’s popularity declined, prompting an internal challenge by Julia Gillard, his deputy prime minister, in June 2010. Sensing his imminent defeat, Rudd chose not to contest the leadership vote, and Gillard was subsequently elected ALP leader and succeeded him as prime minister. Later that year Rudd became foreign minister, but he resigned in late February 2012 amid speculation that he was planning to challenge Gillard for leadership of the party. Within days Gillard called for a poll among the members of Parliament who belonged to the government coalition, and the vote resulted in a decisive defeat for Rudd.

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ALP infighting continued, and in June 2013 Rudd’s ALP supporters began petitioning for Rudd to challenge Gillard for party leadership. Gillard responded with a call for a decisive ALP leadership vote in which the loser would retire from politics, to which Rudd agreed. On June 26, 2013, Rudd emerged as the winner, once again assuming leadership of the ALP, and he was sworn in as prime minister the next day. The change in leadership did little to reverse the party’s decline in public approval, however, and less than three months later Rudd and the ALP suffered a decisive loss to the Liberal-National coalition in the September 7 general election. Rudd retained his parliamentary seat but stepped down as party leader. Two months later he announced that he was retiring from politics, and he resigned from Parliament.

Life after government

In September 2022 Rudd received a Ph.D. from Oxford University; his thesis was a 420-page exploration of the politics and philosophy of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In December of that year Prime Minister Anthony Albanese tapped Rudd to serve as ambassador to the United States, and Rudd assumed that post in March 2023. Although Rudd was generally praised for his work in that role, his appointment drew renewed scrutiny after Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election of 2024. Prior to his ambassadorship, Rudd had made disparaging comments about Trump on social media, labeling him a “traitor to the West” who “drags America and democracy through the mud.” Days after the election, Rudd’s office reported that he had deleted these posts “out of respect for the office of President of the United States.” As Australia and the United States were navigating the specifics of the newly established AUKUS security pact, relations between the two countries had taken on increased importance in Canberra and Washington, D.C.

Rudd penned the autobiographies Not for the Faint-Hearted: A Personal Reflection on Life, Politics, and Purpose (2017) and The PM Years (2018). He examined the role of Xi Jinping in the ascent of China in The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the U.S. and Xi Jinping’s China (2022) and On Xi Jinping (2024).