Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party won Australia’s election, ending John Howard’s 11-year rule after promising to tackle climate change, restore workers’ bargaining power and withdraw Australian troops from Iraq.
Labor won 83 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, gaining 23 seats from 2004, according to the Australian Election Commission.
Rudd, 50, a former diplomat, takes control of an economy that has grown for 16 years.
In an election campaign dominated by debate on interest rates and promises of big income tax cuts, Rudd kept his spending pledges to less than Howard to convince voters he was better-equipped to keep down borrowing costs at a time the central bank is battling accelerating inflation.
The son of a share cropper in Queensland, Rudd attended Australian National University before becoming a diplomat in Stockholm and Beijing between 1981 and 1988.
He worked for the Queensland state Labor Party before entering parliament in 1998.
“My mother, like thousands of others, was left to rely on the bleak charity of the time to raise a family,” Rudd said in his first speech to parliament in 1998.
“It made me think that a decent social security system designed to protect the weak was no bad thing.”
Rudd, Labor’s fourth leader since Paul Keating lost the 1996 election to Howard, is Australia’s 30th prime minister.
Labor’s victory is only the seventh time voters have ousted their government since the beginning of the Second World War.
Biography
Parliamentary Service
Elected to the House of Representatives for Griffith, Queensland, 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2004.
Committee Service
House of Representatives Standing: Publications from 8.12.98 to 8.10.01.
Joint Statutory: Corporations and Securities from 8.12.98 to 11.2.02.
Conferences, Delegations and Visits
Member, Official Australian Observer Mission to the Indonesian Elections, June 1999.
Member, Parliamentary Delegation to East Timor, August-September 2001.
Member, Parliamentary Delegation to Japan, November 2002.
Member, Parliamentary Delegation to USA, September 2003.
Official visit to UK, November 2003.
Parliamentary Party Positions
Leader of the Opposition from 04.12.06;
Leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party from 04.12.06.
Member, Opposition Shadow Ministry from 22.11.01.
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs from 25.11.01 to 08.12.03;
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Security from 08.12.03 to 24.6.05
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade from 24.6.05 to 10.12.06;
International Security from 08.12.03 to 10.12.06.
Current position: Prime Minister; Leader of the Labor Party.
Party Positions
Member, ALP State Campaign Committee (Queensland) 1989.
President and Secretary, ALP Bulimba Branch 1994-98.
Member, ALP Policy Committee on Economic Development and Living Standards from 1998.
Chair, ALP Policy Committee on National Security and Trade from 1998.
Personal
Born 21.9.1957, Nambour, Queensland.
Married to Therese Rein.
Qualifications and Occupation before entering Federal Parliament
BA(Hons) (ANU).
Diplomat 1981-88.
Chief of Staff to the Hon. W Goss
1988-91.
Director-General, Cabinet Office (Queensland ) 1991-95.
Senior China Consultant, KPMG Australia 1996-98.
Information courtesy: Commonwealth
of Australia
