Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd

Quarterly Essay #38

by David Marr

Power Trip shows the making of Kevin Rudd, prime minister. In Eumundi, where Rudd was born, David Marr investigates the formative tragedy of his the death of his father and what came after. He tracks the transformation of a dreamy kid into an implacably determined youth, already set on the prime ministership. He examines Rudd's years as Wayne Goss's right-hand man in Queensland, his relentless work in federal Opposition - from Sunrise to AWB - and finally his record as prime minister. In Rudd's Queensland years, Marr finds strange patterns that will a tendency to chaos, a mania for control and a strange mix of heady ambition and retreat. All through this dazzling and revelatory essay, Marr seeks to know what drives an extraordinarily driven man. As Power Trip concludes, he enters into a conversation with the prime minister in which much becomes clear. "Rudd had sold himself to the Australian people as a new kind of a man of intellect and values out to reshape the future. If he isn't that, people are asking, what is he? And who is he? ... Millions of words have been written about him since he emerged from the Labor pack half-a-dozen years ago, but Rudd remains hidden in full view." -David Marr, Power Trip

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Biography, Australia, Essays

138 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2010

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Eminent Australian journalist, author, and progressive political and social commentator. David Marr is the multi-award-winning author of Patrick White: A Life, Panic and The High Price of Heaven, and co- author with Marian Wilkinson of Dark Victory. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian Australia and the Monthly. He has been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners and presenter of ABC TV’s Media Watch. He is also the author of two previous bestselling biographical Quarterly Essays: Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd and Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott. His areas of expertise include Australian politics, law, censorship, the media and the arts. David Marr began his career in 1973 and is the recipient of four Walkley awards for journalism. He also appears as a semi-regular panellist on the ABC television programs Q&A and Insiders.

Reviews

[Penni Russon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This essay follows the rise of Rudd into power and analyses the flaws in his government. Written in the months before Julia Gillard ousted Rudd, the essay foreshadows his downfall, which happened around the same time the essay was published. I listened to Marr interviewed about this essay after Rudd's spectacular fall (I remember being particularly moved by the parallel between Rudd being made to leave his family home after his father's death - the singular event that seems to have driven his political career - and him having to leave his temporary home in the Lodge).

As I grow up I am dismayed by how personal politics is, how flawed and unreliable our leaders are.

[James Halloran · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10 - An interesting behind-the-scenes perspective on what made the man.
 
The first half of the essay especially goes into depth, recounting and exploring the context which formed Kevin, by the time we knew him as our new Prime Minister in 2007. Marr chronologically follows Kevin's life, from the trauma of his childhood, up through his time as a cut-throat disliked pragmatist, under Wayne Goss, leading the new Labor Government of Queensland.
 
From his childhood, I tentatively got a sense that an unusual mix of a rescuer complex, cultivated while growing up with his mother after losing his father young, along with a contradictive distrust of people, manifested by those same events, dictate his adult life. Hence, possibly, why many have described his infamous contradictory nature and characteristics. It would also be the reason why he'd likely hate reading what I just said, and why so few, if any, can attest to knowing him intimately.
 
However, as he himself would playfully and correctly point out, I don't have a degree in clinical psychology.
 
The last part of the essay, covering his time in government, was a little disappointing however. Marr seemed very caught up in taking for gospel the somewhat contrived character assassinations of him, being pouted in the media and by his adversaries at the time. While some of which character accounts ring true, history has strongly validated him in many of the policy decisions Marr hastily critiques. In so, this essay may well accidentally serve as a time capsule to the contrived public (or media) consciousness at the time, which played the setting to his dismissal from office.

Going into this, I already highly respected Kevin for his evident idealism and work ethic for helping to solve with some of the big problems of our time. It was great to get from this a short, yet in depth, review of his weaknesses, what drives him, and therefore, why he stands for what he does.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best Quarterly Essays I have read so far. David Marr, whom I generally have some reservations towards, proves his worth as a biographical writer here. Without ever coming across as unfairly judgemental or slanderous, but also wholly avoiding an uncritical path, he documents Rudd's rise to power, his flaws and his strengths, and humanises him in a way that even his official biography (written by Ian Macklin) does not quite manage. Kevin Rudd, in this book, come across as a serious, sincerely honest, yet frustrated and sometimes petty man who, love him or hate him, is worthy of respect.

[Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whilst worth the read, it does seem a little too brief in areas but still paints a fairly accurate picture of Rudd. Scant on actual solid sourcing in the early parts of Kevin’s political life, it would be nice if it were covered in a little more in detail.

[Chrissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Marr is a very talented writer.

[Matt John · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Marr writes about Kevin Rudd from his time growing up right through to assuming the Prime Ministership (before the Julia Gillard challenge). Marr proposes that Rudd offered Australia nothing radical, but a return to old fashioned beliefs that the government was able to make life better for everyone, however describes Rudd as a man driven by personal ambition rather than a genuine interest in political power to induce change. As with his essay on Abbott, you get a distinct impression that Marr does not think very kindly of Rudd and unfortunately (again) clouds the facts with personal opinion. Contains nothing that we now know about Rudd the man.

[Sarah]

I bought this old Quarterly Essay at a second hand book shop because I thought it would be a fun #tbt for this old Kevin 07 girl. And it was that. This biography was also written just before the Gillard take over, and so it was refreshing to read about Rudd in a way that wasn't distracted by that event.