Monday, December 04, 2006
MEET THE FORKERS
Newly-installed Labor leader Kevin Rudd:
I remember actually sitting on my father with a horse one day, he died when I was eleven so I don’t have a huge number of childhood memories of him but it was sitting at the gate of the property and looking down the road coming in from town and he said, “Well Kev, have you made up your mind yet?” Like I’m about ten years old at this stage and I thought, “I’m not sure what you mean Dad”, and he said, “Well you’re coming to that fork in the road”, and as a ten year old you look down the road and you see no fork ...
He said that back in March. Rudd’s been seeing plenty of forks lately, however. In fact, through Kevin’s eyes, Australia is a regular prong-fest:
• Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd says: “Howard has come to a fork in the road.”
• “Australia, in our view and in my view, has reached a fork in the road. We have reached a fork in the road on climate change; we have reached a fork in the road when it comes to proper protections for working families; we have reached a fork in the road when it comes to critical questions and challenges such as Iraq.”
• “Our belief is that Australia has reached a fork in the road - there’s a fork in the road when it comes to the economy,” he said.
• Mr Rudd nominated climate change, the manufacturing industry, industrial relations, education and health as the main points of difference between Labor and the Government and said the country was at a fork in the road.
• During his press conference after the vote, Mr Rudd said he saw workplace policy as a clear “fork in the road" — a turn of phrase he used nine times during his first press conference as Opposition leader.
Rudd deputy Julia Gillard is also in on the forking action:
I agree with Kevin that the election we will have next year is a fork in the road.
Rudd’s 2007 election slogan: IT’S TINE!