Yesterday, Kevin Rudd suffered his first electoral kick up the proverbial when the Nationals won the Gippsland by-election in a truly ROBUST manner.

Let’s sum up what Rudd has done so far in the seven months since he became Prime Minister. He apologised to the aborigines. That’s ok since it’s pretty meaningless anyway.

He insulted the Jews and the Muslims by his mishandling of the 2020 summit.

He insulted the Japanese by leaving them off the VIP list of neighbours to be visited.

He insulted his own public service for being lazy. Great move for a diplomat, isn’t it?

He is going to get rid of all nuclear weapons. Now that should help the economy!

He is going to save the world from global warming or is it climate change now? He is going to tax all of us if we use energy even though our contribution to the alleged climate change is negligible.

He is going to unite all of our South-East Asian neighbours with us as the leader of course. By the way, he has again insulted another of our Asian neighbours and fourth most important trading partner, South Korea, by not visiting it on this latest trip he’s about to take.

He is into travelling though and he collects lots of Frequent Flyer points.

He has set up lots of investigations into food prices and petrol prices. He then announced that he can’t do any more about them. Well done, Kevin!

So how were things last year when John Howard was in charge? Australia was doing well economically. Confidence was high and the atmosphere was optimistic.

Came the Rudd. Petrol prices skyrocketed, the stock market crashed, the U.S subprime problems became our problems. I’m not claiming that Rudd is responsible for these problems but he has shown himself to be the wrong man for the moment. If we are to apply Thomas Carlyle’s Great Man theory, which is that a great man is one who comes at the right time as Churchill did in 1939, then Rudd ain’t the man.

Instead of doing a New Deal, Rudd aggravated the problems by saying that things were bad. This was to get him off the hook, of course. He is not the sort of person to cop the blame for anything he does wrong. Was this supposed to make us and the economic pundits feel better? Well, it didn’t. Rudd’s tax cuts are now meaningless since interest rates and other hikes have eroded them. Wait until the carbon emissions scheme comes into effect and then we’ll be in even deeper trouble.

Former Prime Minister, John Howard did say that interest rates will always be higher under Labor and he was right.

No doubt we’ll be in for another summit of bright ideas. I can think of one right now and it’s a robust one. Say good night to the folks, Kevin.