AAP General News (Australia)
04-04-2008
Fed: Revelations range from Led Zeppelin to Chinese food
By Maria Hawthorne, Chief Political Correspondent
CANBERRA, April 4 AAP - Brendan Nelson has six guitars, wants Led Zeppelin to tour
Australia and feels some sympathy for the banks.
Malcolm Turnbull catches buses, comes from a broken home and has a field marshal's
baton in his metaphorical knapsack.
And Kevin Rudd's happy to hear that Stockholm's Chinese restaurant scene has improved
since the early 1980s.
It's amazing what you can learn in a week of tours by federal leaders.
Rudd is hitting his stride on his first major overseas foray since becoming prime minister
last November, entering the European leg of his three-continent tour.
He's met the US, French and European Union presidents, all three US presidential candidates,
an astronaut, an Oscar-winning actor and an award-winning mathematician.
Talks have ranged from the US sub-prime crisis to the war against terrorism in Afghanistan
- and even the standard of Chinese food in Sweden, where he was first posted as a young
diplomat more than 25 years ago.
The tour is fast-paced, gruelling and extremely top-level.
At the other end of the spectrum, Nelson has made good on the promise he made when
he beat Turnbull by two votes to the Liberal leadership last year - to tour the country,
one service station at a time.
He's calling it a "listening tour", complete with an internet diary and seemingly endless
radio appearances.
He's admitted to having four Fender guitars, one acoustic and one more electric guitar.
He's a fan of the Rolling Stones, wants Rudd to use next week's visit to London to
ask Led Zeppelin to tour, and says he didn't feel it when his wife removed his diamond
stud earring in his sleep because it had been a "relaxing" night.
Despite a preferred prime minister rating of just 10 per cent and the looming spectre
of Turnbull's leadership aspirations, Nelson says he's confident he will lead the Liberals
to the 2010 election.
And in a bold move, he's expressed sympathy for the banks for having to foreclose on
families no longer able to afford their home or business loans.
"Anyone that suggests that it's not equally a significant experience for those who
are the lenders misunderstands the nature of what you do and how many of you do it," Nelson
says.
It's not a popular view at a time when rising interest rates and spiralling cost-of-living
pressures are sending families to the wall.
Mortgage rates are at a 12-year high, housing affordability is at its lowest rate in
33 years and repossessions in Victoria alone have tripled during the past four years.
Nelson was no doubt thinking of the finance workers under pressure to meet targets
for
new loans and the bailiffs who must evict defaulting families from their homes when
he made his comments.
But backing the banks is a risky move for the man who has changed his title from "opposition
leader" to "alternative prime minister", particularly as the alternative opposition leader
is never far behind.
Nelson spent Tuesday in Brisbane. Turnbull was there on Thursday, touting his own credentials
as a listener and at the same time - perhaps accidentally - undermining the importance
of Nelson's tour.
"It is just a fundamental part of the business. Listening is to politicians what cooking
is to a chef - it's the job," Turnbull told a Brisbane radio station.
His leadership aspirations were on display when Turnbull likened parliamentarians to
army privates.
"Every private, if you like, that enlists in parliament has a field marshal's baton
in their knapsack. Ultimately, how far you rise and what you do depends very much on the
circumstances of the time and the support of your colleagues and the support of the community,
naturally," he said.
"So I think the answer is: my ambition is to serve Australia and my constituents in
the parliament to the best of my ability. Where that leads me, time will tell."
And he used the same interview to talk about his childhood.
Rudd spoke a lot about his childhood experiences, particularly the hardships his family
went through after his father died when Rudd was 11, in the year he spent introducing
himself to voters as opposition leader.
Nelson has often cited his memories of his father pointing to houses in Tasmania and
urging him to work hard for a better life.
Turnbull, battling his image as a multi-millionaire investment banker, also drew on
childhood hardships.
His mother left when he was nine, leaving his father to bring him up alone.
"By and large, mothers don't leave their children," Turnbull said as he praised his
father for never criticising his mother.
It seems a difficult childhood - and a willingness to talk about it openly - is becoming
a necessity for a political leader, particularly if they represent a generally well-heeled
electorate.
AAP mfh/rl/sp
KEYWORD: NEWSCOPE FEDERAL (AAP NEWS ANALYSIS)
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