Kevin Rudd and Anor

Last night while cuddling up with Tress on the couch and watching tv, we caught the news that Kevin Rudd was retiring.

I wanted to recall my thoughts about this complex man, who was prime minister of Australia for the bulk of our time here. We came to Melbourne in 2004, and Rudd became PM in 2007.

I saw this entry in Nov 2007 which I made but also caught this extract in the same entry:

We’ve been having a family (just the wife/mom and their 10 year old boy) with us for about a week and a half now, and last night when we got home, Theresa and I caught up with her to chat about how she has been doing with all the preparatory work. I feel her fear and her concerns and generally, appreciate her disorientation.

There is so much to do.

I’m disappointed with some of her friends, who helped her find their rental property. Against my advice, they committed to the lease without even seeing the property, when they were still in Malaysia. They relied on their friends to inspect the property and committed to the lease on that basis. It turned out that the property is in shambles. It is dirty and parts of the house are dilapidated, with a backdoor even missing a knob/lock. Their friends have not offered to help her with the fixing or cleaning and generally left her to her own defences. They came around and took her out for dinner last Friday but did little else. I’m sure they have their reasons but I feel that having committed her to a property which required so much work they could have at least asked if they could help. I kept asking myself how these friends could have advised this family to apply for a lease for a property like that. As a result, this family has been extremely slow in getting this place ready and despite having the lease approved and keys collected well before they arrived the house is still not ready and they are still squatting with us.

Maybe I’m being unfair. She’s a nice person and the boy is generally well behaved so they have not been bad guests in any way and are welcomed to remain as long as they need to.

On the other hand, I felt she should do more to quickly settle into her own house and prepare to live this new phase of their lives as early as possible. Postponing this would not help her in any way, except maybe save a few dollars. If this was her motivation for not expediting preparation of her house then it is disappointing and she is being near sighted.

Would I do the same for this family again today? At a drop of a hat. Would I feel the same way thereafter as I do today? As the drop of a hat.

I guess I’m simpler than Kevin Rudd.

Related articles

• Look what’s new on Stephensons Rd, Mt Waverley (elizabethgardens.wordpress.com)
• Australian ex-PM Kevin Rudd retires (bbc.co.uk)
• The rise and fall of Kevin Rudd (abc.net.au)