Was it because commentators are saying that he’s becoming a mirror image to John. Howard that Kevin Rudd decided to take a leaf from Mr. Costello’s book and show some brand differentiation?
While conceding a republic isn’t a "first order concern" for working families right now, he says it would be later. Coming as he does from a multi millionaire family, you might wonder how he knows what the concerns of working families are or will be. Mr Malcolm Turnbull, who ran the republican case in the referendum, concluded four months before the landslide 1999 ‘No’ vote that “nobody is interested.”
That’s even more the case today. Since 1999 support has declined and is in free fall among the young. Yet Mr. Rudd is prepared to spend millions more on this futile exercise. Even the republican movement can’t say what sort of republic they want.
His claim that the 1999 referendum confused people is patronising. Perhaps he’s planning to do what the republican movement tried to do in 1999 – remove all references to “republic’ and “president “from the referendum question!
ACM assures Mr. Rudd that he will have a fight on his hands if he tries to revive republicanism and to change the flag, as Mr. Keating and Mr. Beasley planned.