HOUSE RULES: Christian Kerr | April 06, 2009
BAD language. Bad attitudes. Anger management issues. Ruthless exercise of power. Even the visit to the strip club Scores. When you think about it, Kevin Rudd has a lot in common with bikies.
And bikies, or men with links to bikie gangs, have been turning up at the Prime Minister's residence in Canberra, according to ABC TV. Late last year, four men arrived at The Lodge, saying they were maintenance workers, the Insiders program reported yesterday. They were carrying documents indicating they had been cleared by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, but the AFP officers were uneasy.
"The men were tattooed and dressed like bikies, but they had what appeared to be legitimate documentation and it all checked out, so the police eventually let them into the grounds," the ABC said. The men spent at least an hour in the house and were unsupervised for much of the time. "Only afterwards did the group's credentials and purpose come under suspicion," the ABC reported.
"There is still some confusion over whether any maintenance was requested or indeed carried out, and no clear answers on what the men were really up to."
There hasn't exactly been much demand for bikies as staff since the Hells Angels caused some problems for the Rolling Stones while providing security at the Altamont concert in northern California 40 years ago.
Media requests to the PM's staff about The Lodge incident met with a stonewall yesterday. The catch-all of "security" was used to draw a veil of silence over anything undignified.
But perhaps Rudd has been forced to hire bikies. They might be the only people who can work with him. The PM has not only managed to reduce defence force personnel to tears, he is also scaring off his own staff. He has lost 16 people from his own office - one a month - since winning office, the News Limited tabloids reported over the weekend.
The Daily Telegraph bought in a body language expert to analyse the apology Rudd offered to the member of the RAAF's 34 Squadron who incurred his ire.
"The 'I'm really sorry' was a Clayton's apology," the expert said. "He wasn't really sorry." You don't say.
You don't need too much skill in political semantics to realise choice of words had already made that clear. Rudd said of his anger: "If anyone is offended by that, including the attendant concerned, of course I apologise." Nothing like suggesting someone else had the problem.
Now we're forced to ask: does Rudd have RM Williams or biker boots beneath that unthreatening suit. And when he packed Belinda Neal off on her anger management course, did he know where to send her from personal experience?
