By Chris Graham,
former editor and founder of the National Indigenous Times newspaper
There's nothing more Australian than meat pies, Holden cars and Hey, Hey It's Saturday. And maybe racism. And, as it turns out, ex-prime ministers having a bit of a cry.
Bob Hawke, of course, wept for his children. And Tiananmen Square. Rudd, by contrast wept for himself.
The former Prime Minister's concession speech last week was, I'll concede, emotional and heartfelt. It was hard to watch. It's even harder to condemn. But I'm going to anyway, primarily because everything he had to say about his achievements in Aboriginal affairs are complete rubbish.
"I'm proud of the fact that we are closing the gap between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians," Rudd told a packed parliamentary courtyard.
Right. Except that under Rudd the gap widened.
Some readers may recall it was Rudd who promised, with a flourish of his hand, that on the first parliamentary sitting day of the year he would personally deliver a report card about the Government's progress in 'Closing the Gap'. Rudd announced this auspicious date precisely because, he said, it would put pressure on his Government to perform.
And then on every single occasion, he missed his own self-imposed deadline. Indeed, the first year, Rudd missed it by almost a month, blaming the Victorian bushfire tragedy for the delay. Of course, the fire started a week after Rudd's deadline. It takes great political courage - or maybe something else - to use the deaths of 173 Australians for political gain.
When Rudd finally did deliver his reports, they always showed the gap between black and white Australians widening across most major social indicators.
The fact is, the gap that always needed closing under Rudd was the rhetoric gap. Which brings me nicely back to his parting speech.
"[We did] little things and big things. Putting hundreds of Indigenous kids into our nation's leading boarding schools."
Boarding schools are not exactly a new concept for Aboriginal people. The process has occurred for decades under Labor and Liberal, although admittedly not at the same rate. But the point Rudd missed is that Aboriginal people want to educate their kids in their own communities. Surprise surprise. They want educational infrastructure in their towns like everyone else. And they thought Rudd would deliver.
A core part of the Rudd government's 2007 election manifesto was to promise that schools would spring up in Aboriginal communities all over the country. He even promised that by the end of his first term in office, all Aboriginal children would have access to a pre-school, no matter where they lived.
It's never happened.
Instead, under Rudd's economic stimulus plan, builders have been busy ripping off taxpayer funds for over-priced, half-arsed school infrastructure in white communities. Aboriginal towns would have killed for that sort of failure.
Rudd also referred to "backing such things as the Clontarf [Football] Academy". Clontarf is a great initiative, run by fabulous folk, who keep beautiful black kids engaged in school through AFL. It also happens to be someone else's idea, and was backed under Howard to boot.
Rudd said he was "proud of the fact we're behind a commitment to create 50,000 extra jobs for Indigenous Australians".
'Behind' is a stretch, because again, it was someone else's idea. Ironically, that turned out to be a good thing for the Government, because it was a bad idea. The Aboriginal Employment Covenant - which has so far soaked up unknown millions of taxpayer dollars - has, at last count, put less than a few hundred people into real jobs.
Inevitably, Rudd's concession speech turned to the National Apology, arguably his finest hour as PM. Sort of.
"I'm most proud of the fact that... we greeted the Stolen Generations. The apology was unfinished business for our nation. It is the beginning of new business for our nation."
Except that it's not. The apology is still part of the unfinished business of Australia. Most Aboriginal people today no longer accept Rudd's apology. While it was moving, it came without reparations. The overwhelming majority of Aboriginal people now believe that the whole exercise was a stunt, a populist pitch to a cynical nation.
Rudd's concession speech is also notable for the things left unsaid. There's the Northern Territory intervention, a disastrous policy labelled as racist by the United Nations, and which has cost taxpayers more than $1 billion while causing demonstrable harm to Aboriginal people.
Under Rudd's stewardship, school attendance figures in the NT are down and anaemia rates in kids are up. And despite the ridiculous claims of Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, nutrition has declined.
There's a $670 million housing program which has failed to deliver housing, while suicides and self-harm incidents are through the roof - 97 prior to the intervention, double that number by 2009.
While Macklin, admittedly, is the goose who cooked this golden egg, the buck must stop with Rudd.
And who could forget Rudd's election promise to move Australia Day to a more inclusive date, only to find himself in office delivering a "respectful no" when asked. It was anything but respectful. It was disgraceful. Another Labor betrayal.
Kevin Rudd's mantra in Indigenous affairs was to 'reset the relationship' with Aboriginal people. He had perhaps the greatest opportunity of any modern leader to do so. After more than a decade of John Howard - a conviction politician who wore his racism on his sleeve - Aboriginal people were ready for a Bran Nue Dae.
The Apology was supposed to be the first step in the reconciliation process. Under Rudd, it became the destination. Every time he jumped on a plane to fly overseas, he donned the 'Sorry' pants his environment minister wore at the 2000 Olympics closing ceremony (metaphorically speaking), and shouted his act to the world.
Rudd even had the hide to present the Pope a bound copy of his apology, knowing full well that Aboriginal people back home were suffering under populist policies developed solely to appeal to the redneck elements of our nation.
I loved Rudd's National Apology. I genuinely believe it to be the finest speech ever delivered on Australian soil. It's better than the Redfern speech by Keating, which were the words of a (brilliant) speechwriter.
Rudd wrote the National Apology himself. It came from a prime ministerial heart and mind, and at the time, he won mine. I'll never forget how it felt, albeit briefly, to feel proud to be Australian again.
I particularly loved this line: "Symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong."
Which is why I'm glad, for Rudd's sake, that Red Symons was nowhere to be seen at Rudd's final press conference as prime minister.