Kevin Rudd as CNN host: no stuff-ups, but cricket joke probably went wide
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Version 0 of 1. It was a eager, if slightly stiff, Kevin Rudd who made his debut as an international television host on CNN on the weekend, playing to his strengths by interviewing the the Chinese vice-finance minister, Zhu Guangyao. “I’m Kevin Rudd, the president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, but more importantly today, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour in the program,” the former Australian prime minister began. While the fluent Mandarin speaker introduced his Chinese guest with perfect pronunciation and an expert’s grasp of the topic, his skills as an interviewer were less impressive. While he’s a polished media performer, it takes quite some practice to appear at once in control and at ease while on the other side of the desk. Rudd’s international media gig came about when he was asked to be one of five “special guest hosts” to fill in for CNN’s chief international correspondent, Christaine Amanpour, on her daily show Amanpour. “Volatility has rocked global equities market this week,” Rudd, resplendent in a bright red tie, said in his introduction to Zhu. “Many reasons have been given, including the snail’s pace of the economic recovery we’ve seen in Europe, now seven years after the global financial crisis began.” Rudd didn’t confine himself to the Chinese economy, he also interviewed guests about his other favourite topics, climate change and sport. “Meanwhile in the United States, snowfall in Boston broke all-time records. I know. I was there. I had to dig my way out of the house and home to get my way to Harvard,” he said. “All this, of course, leads to the obvious question, to what extent is climate change brought about by human activity, responsible for these and other extreme weather events?” Introducing climate change expert Lord Nicholas Stern, Rudd asked: “Tell me, in the five years or so that we’ve had since Copenhagen, what’s the science now telling us now that it wasn’t able to tell us back then?” It was of course sport that inspired Rudd’s rather lame joke – apparently told to him by a customs official who spotted he was Australian – about England’s thumping victory over his own country in cricket’s Ashes series. “He says to me, what do you call an Australian who’s good with a bat? “Respectfully, I replied, I have no idea. “He then says to me, a vet, of course.” Perhaps to make sure his global audience knew he was not a random blow-in he threw in a little joke of his own: “There’s only so much a former Australian prime minister can take.” But, he predicted, Australia would fare better in the Rugby World Cup: “England will be annihilated, France, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand into the semi finals. Australia into the grand final,” he said. Overall we would have to agree with Rudd’s own assessment, posted on Twitter, that he “didn’t stuff it up”. Just hosted @CNN Amanpour program. Didn't stuff it up completely. Tricky asking questions while not answering them :) pic.twitter.com/sqMQdXpKZ5 “I’m Kevin Rudd, thank you for watching, and goodbye from London,” he said in his sign off. Related: Politics as blood sport: The Killing Season makes the Blair-Brown rift look tame Before the high-profile TV outing, the rookie interviewer had played the more familiar role of interviewee, sitting down for an extensive interview with News Corp, to be published on Monday. In the interview, with GQ Australia magazine, Rudd says he agreed to be interviewed by the ABC for its three-part documentary The Killing Season because he had to defend himself and refute the “lies” told by his Labor colleagues Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan. “So I did the program for the simple reason that for five years I’d been silent,” Rudd told GQ Australia, according to a preview published on news.com.au. “The problem is when lies and lies are repeated and repeated and repeated. As Joseph Goebbels once observed, some people start to believe those lies are true. “In the five years which have now elapsed since the leadership coup in June of 2010, I’d chosen not to stand up and speak in my own defence against the multiple untruthful statements made by my party colleagues at the time and since.” Related: The Killing Season: Kevin Rudd says 'entirely possible' he leaked to undermine Julia Gillard “This was the first time that I chose to defend my record. Others have written books in the meantime – Julia Gillard has written a book, I didn’t respond to it; Wayne Swan has written a book, I haven’t responded.” But Rudd says he has put the traumatic assassination behind him now and is enjoying his new career at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “To be politically assassinated in the middle of your political career by those who were elected to be your loyal deputy is a traumatic moment in politics,” he said. “Let’s not pretend it’s not. But that’s the past. I have embarked upon an entirely new international political vocation now, and I’m very happy with it.” The CNN interview can be viewed in Australia at 8pm and midnight on Saturday. |