Rudd committed to governance - are you kidding?

Comments on Andrew MacIntyre “Anticipating Obama’s visit to Indonesia and Australia”, 7/03/2010, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/03/07/anticipating-obamas-visit-to-indonesia-and-australia/

First things first, the author says: "Rudd remains strongly committed to strengthening the institutional framework for regional cooperation in Asia. Explicit support from Washington would be helpful now in accelerating this cause. While the precise institutional form for achieving this outcome remains an open question, anything that enhances America’s ability to advance its core interests in Asia is likely to find favour with Obama."

If Australians are forgiving enough for Rudd's governance style and the outcomes such as the pink batts fatalities and ETS fiascos, as well as the cash handouts, the $43 billion NBN without business case study, a half cooked product for health reform after two years in the making and 8 months later than his pre-election promise, so far after just two years with his governance, it is by no means certain that peoples in other countries would believe his governance capability, even probably his very desire after his firstly declaration of fiscal/economic conservative before the last election and only then having a huge assault in his economic essay to advocate big government.

Even within Australia, he has been questioned and he has confessed he did not anticipate how hard it is to deliver services/policies.

Does he anticipate how hard it will be for international affairs, after his role as one of the friends of the chair in making the draft at Copenhagen? Or is it easier to spin politically internationally than domestically, perhaps some other nations may not be as intelligent as Australians in his eyes?

It is interesting to see there is still some loving affairs from some circle of the academia for a failed prime minister. Are they eagerly waiting for the MyUniversity website, perhaps?

Another interesting piece from the author is: “Surprisingly, there may be greater gains to be had from cooperation in the security sphere. For more than a decade, the Leahy Act, prohibiting the US from training military units with a history of human rights abuse, has meant that security cooperation with Indonesia has been limited to police-based counter-terrorism efforts. Both sides now want to move beyond this. Driven by China’s growing regional weight, Obama seems prepared to go further than Bush in finding ways to restart military-to-military engagement. There are signs that the Obama administration may seek to re-establish training programs with Indonesia’s controversial elite commando unit, Kopassus, by engaging with younger officers who could not have participated in past abuses.”

Is there any principle in either some of the US approaches in the past or the author’s advocacy, or just hypocrisy?

People’s memories are fortunately not that short: Saddam was backed and supported by the west led by the US earlier and only to be overthrown by the invasion of a circle of friends including Australia led by the US, at the expense of any international institutional mandate.

Maybe, this is a show of governance or good international institution framework at work from the author point of view?

Academia, poor academia!

People often use "out of touch" to describe some politicians, like prime ministers/presidents, etc. It is interesting to observe that some other people including academia sometimes can also be suitable candidates for this dubious title.

Those academics who are really out of touch should get out of their lovely ivory towers and know what the real world is and how it looks like.

In that way they may increase their relevance.

Of course, people in China often describe universities have been institutionalised to have equivalent ranks as government officials. Understandably, some university administrators may be fairly good in that contest so they either don't have or have lost their academia capacities.

In economics, that is perhaps called specialisation!

I am really getting forgetful!

Oh, I forgot the Prime Minister’s handling of the Sri Lanka boat people on the Oceanic Vikings and its effect on the relations between Australia and Indonesia, a clear demonstration of the PM's diplomatic skills and resolves.

Another example is what; the 2020 summit after the PM became the PM? A millennium event! In addition to many photo opportunities and media coverage, a thousand ideas were generated from those preeminent people/participants at the summit. It was a success, maybe.

What happened afterwards? Isn't that the case that about 9 ideas were planned to be acted upon? What are they? Are they the best for Australia among the thousand?

Only time can tell, but some people probably already cast their doubts at the time when the 9 was announced, perhaps rightly so!