Kevin Rudd - Entry Into Politics

Entry Into Politics

Rudd joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1981, serving there until 1988. He and his wife spent most of the 1980s overseas at various Australian embassies, including in Stockholm and in Beijing.

Returning to Australia in 1988, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Opposition Leader in Queensland, Wayne Goss. He remained in that role when Goss was elected Premier in 1989, a position he held until 1992 when Goss appointed him Director-General of the Office of Cabinet. In this position, Rudd was arguably Queensland's most powerful bureaucrat. He presided over a number of reforms, including development of a national program for teaching foreign languages in schools. Rudd was influential in both promoting a policy of developing an Asian languages and cultures program which was unanimously accepted by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 1992 and later chaired a high level working group which provided the foundation of the strategy in its report, which is frequently cited as "the Rudd Report".

During this time he underwent a cardiac valve transplant operation (Ross procedure), receiving a cadaveric aortic valve replacement for rheumatic heart disease.

The Goss Government saw its majority slashed in 1995, before losing it altogether after a by-election one year later. After Goss' resignation, Rudd left the Queensland Government and was hired as a Senior China Consultant by the accounting firm KPMG Australia. While in that position, he won selection to be the Labor candidate for the seat of Griffith at the 1996 federal election. Despite being endorsed by the retiring Labor MP, Ben Humphreys, Rudd was considerably hampered by Labor's unpopularity in Queensland, as well as a redistribution that almost halved Labor's majority. Rudd was defeated by Liberal Graeme McDougall on the eighth count as Labor won only two seats in Queensland. Rudd stood in the same seat against McDougall in the 1998 election, this time winning on the fifth count.