Reality Check: We have this much chance of getting a security council seat.

Kevin Rudd’s latest ploy to get Australia (and more importantly himself) a seat on the UN security council is set to cost Australian taxpayers $11.5 million dollars.

TAXPAYERS will pay $372,000 a year to rent a flat and office space in Rome for the new ambassador to the Vatican, former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer.

Another $3 million, or $12,000 a square metre, is being spent to convert an apartment to become the new office for the ambassador adjacent to the Vatican.

Rent for each property will cost taxpayers about $14,000 a month plus about $1500 a month each for service charges.

According to Treasury estimates, the cost of the Holy See post will be $11.5 million over four years – or $55,700 per week.

About $1.5 million will fund Mr Fischer’s salary, allowances and upkeep of his official residence.


Now in these days of budgets running into the trillions $11.5 million might not seem like a lot, especially in Australian dollars but has anyone bothered to tell our primeminister that we are virtual nobodies on the global stage?

Australia is not going to get onto the security council anytime soon, and here’s why.

Apart from sending soldiers to go fight wars light years away and bullying our pacific neighbours into letting us use their oil reserves we as a country don’t really have much clout in  world politics.

This was made perfectly clear when Britain downgraded Australia to a second tier nation at the recent G20 summit earlier this year. We shared the prestigious second tier podium alongside Russia, Canada, Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey.

That’s right, when it comes to international politics, Australia has the same level of importance as Mexico. You know, the the guys led by… wait who’s the head of Mexico again?

To further illustrate the level of non-involvement in global politics by Australia I’d like to draw your attention to news coverage of the last 48 hours. In a time of global recession, the end of the financial year being less then a month away and Pakistan seemingly about to bubble over into a Taliban’esque apocalypse, here’s a snapshot of the last 4 stories published involving our prime minister.


1. The Therese Rein gym photos

Rudd’s wife, Therese Rein was snapped by photographers whilst she worked out at a private gym. Not happy that the spotlight had momentarily shifted from himself, Rudd released a press statement.

PEOPLE will make up their own minds about the publication of unauthorised photographs of Therese Rein working out at the gym, her husband and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

Asked if he thought it was an invasion of his wife’s privacy, Mr Rudd said: “If magazines choose to photograph people training at the gym through their cameras without their consent well, I presume, it’s a matter for those magazines.”

“I think people will form their own judgment about that.”

Mr Rudd said he himself was “fair game” because he was the one in the family who’d chosen to go into public life.

Mr Rudd said he would not be joining his wife on the climb.

“It’s far too rough for the likes of me. The tough ones in our family are all women,” he said.


So a tabloid magazine takes unsolicited photos of someone (which never happens) and all of a sudden it’s national news? Well I for one am glad that I can now rest easy safe with the knowledge of Rudd’s opinion on tabloid articles.

Isn’t obsessing about people’s wives a US thing? What the hell do I care if Therese Rein lost a couple of hundred kilos?


2. Kevin weighs into the Grimshaw vs Ramsay Lesbian Pig stunt

It’s one thing to comment when the paparazzi intrude on your wife’s life but it’s entirely different to actively go looking for attention.

The toast of trashy media in Australia this week has been the ongoing fabricated publicity drama between Tracy Grimshaw and Gordon Ramsay. First he called her a pig lesbian, then she called him a bullying narcissist, then her mum was outraged, then he apologised, then it was published internationally, then his Perth dinner was cancelled and on it goes.

Inbetween all that who should pop in to give us the low down on what he thought? None other then our primeminister Kevin Rudd;

“I think I can describe his remarks as reflecting a new form of low life,” Mr Rudd told Fairfax on Tuesday.

“I just drew breath when I saw the sort of stuff which was said about her, I just think that’s off and offensive.”

Mr Rudd said he and his wife Therese Rein were not regular viewers of Ramsay’s TV shows.

“Good on Tracy Grimshaw for coming out and giving him a left uppercut,” Mr Rudd said.


OMG the primeminister thinks Ramsay is a low life. QUICK SOMEBODY CALL EVERY JOURNALIST IN THE COUNTR-…oh wait.


3. Julia Gillard will be my successor

It’s not often a serving primeminister starts talking about succession just over a year and a half into office. That didn’t stop Rudd from singing the praises of his number two though.

Mr Rudd said it was possible Ms Gillard, who hails from Labor’s Left faction, could become the nation’s first female prime minister.

“Julia Gillard is an exceptionally talented individual,” he said.

“She has done an extraordinary job in getting parliamentary passage of the Government’s new industrial relations legislation. She’s doing a great job also in the employment area, given the impact of the global recession.

“That’s why I say at any stage in the future Julia would be very, very hard to beat. She is fantastic.”


Gillard certainly seems to have her plate full and appears to be earning her keep, maybe she could give Rudd something to do.


4. The Australian Primeminister is Australian, right?

Sensitive to criticism that his new frontbench line-up had overlooked women in favour of factional heavies, Mr Rudd yesterday dismissed the claims with the Aussie maxim, “fair shake of the sauce bottle mate”.

More curiously, he said it three times during a short television interview with Sky News.

“Fair shake of the sauce bottle mate, if you were to compare what this government has done in terms of the promotion of women of talent and ability compared with our predecessors, it’s chalk and cheese … fair shake of the sauce bottle mate,” he said.


WHO THE HELL IS TALKING LIKE THIS IN AUSTRALIA?!?!

If Captain Cook, Crocodile Dundee, Skippy the kangaroo and Don Bradman somehow managed to have a child together, it would STILL want to punch Rudd in the face for trying to pass this phrase off as Australian.

Whichever advisor came up with the ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle mate’ campaign needs to be fired immediately and deported from Australia forever. Rudd’s freaking mandarin sounds more Australian then his Australian does.


As you can see, it’s been a pretty busy two days for Rudd. What with local current events, the paparazzi stalking his wife and trying desperately to shed the book worm ‘I’m better then you’ image.

I’d love to blame the media for this but the fact of the matter is well there just hasn’t been any other news to report about the political head of Australia. Face it Rudd, nobody is going to come to us when the shit hits the global fan and we’re certainly not getting a UN security council seat anytime soon.

Perhaps we could put the $11.5 million towards a study on just what the hell it is Rudd does for Australia politically because I certainly can’t see anything of value.

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