Abstract
Out of office and called to account before a royal commission, the former prime minister Kevin Rudd demonstrated he had lost none of his popular appeal by winning support from those least likely to empathise with his position—the families of four young Australians who had lost their lives in a tragic failure of public policy under Rudd’s administration. Chapter 6 demonstrates two other things. First, that legal rhetoric cannot match the power of political rhetoric when persuasion of a broader public is required. Secondly, a leader out of office may no longer feels the constraints of Cabinet or party collegiality and will sacrifice established Cabinet conventions in a manner otherwise unthinkable within the confines of the Westminster government.
And as for Cabinet counsels, it may be their motto, Plenus rimarum sum [I am full of holes]: one futile person, that maketh it his glory to tell, will do more harm than many that know it their duty to conceal (Of Counsel, Bacon 1625)
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Masters, A.B., Uhr, J. (2017). Kevin Rudd: Rhetoric and a Royal Commission. In: Leadership Performance and Rhetoric. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58774-5_6
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