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A ''nation'' may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a ''nation'' has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government (for example the inhabitants of a sovereign state) irrespective of their ethnic make-up. In international relations, ''nation'' can refer to a ''country'' or ''sovereign state''. The United Nations, for instance, speaks of how it was founded after the Second World War by “51 countries” and currently has 193 member states. The word ''nation'' can more specifically refer to a tribe of North American Indians, such as the Cherokee Nation.

Etymology

The word ''nation'' came to English from the Old French word ''nacion'' which in turn originates from the Latin word ''natio'' ('''') literally meaning "that which has been born".

As an example of how the word ''natio'' was employed in classical Latin, the following quote from Cicero's ''Philippics Against Mark Antony'' in 44 BC contrasts the external, inferior ''nationes'' ("races of people") with the Roman ''civitas'' ("community").:

An early example of the use of the word "nation" (in conjunction with language and territory) was provided in 968 by Liutprand (the bishop of Cremona) who, while confronting the Byzantine emperor, Nicephorus II, on behalf of his patron Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, declared:

A significant early use of the term ''nation'', as ''natio'', was at mediaeval universities, to describe the colleagues in a college or students, above all at the University of Paris, who were all born within a ''pays'', spoke the same language and expected to be ruled by their own familiar law. In 1383 and 1384, while studying theology at Paris, Jean Gerson was twice elected procurator for the French ''natio''. The division of students into a ''natio'' was also adopted at the University of Prague, where from its opening in 1349 the ''studium generale'' was divided among Bohemian, Bavarian, Saxon and Polish ''nations''.

In a similar way, the ''nationes'' were segregated by the Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem, who maintained at Rhodes the hostels from which they took their name "where foreigners eat and have their places of meeting, each nation apart from the others, and a Knight has charge of each one of these hostels, and provides for the necessities of the inmates according to their religion," as the Spanish traveller Pedro Tafur noted in 1436.

See also

Citizenship

Civilization

Country

Culture

Donation

Ethnic group

Government

Identity (social science)

Identity politics

Imagined communities

Indigenous peoples

Intercultural competence

List of sovereign states

List of states with limited recognition

Lists of ethnic groups

Lists of people by nationality

Meta-ethnicity

Multinational state

Nation (university)

National emblem

Nationalism

Nationality

Nation state

Polity

Race (classification of humans)

Separatism

Society

Sovereign state

Territorial dispute

Territory

Tribe

References

Category:Ethnicity Category:Indigenous peoples of North America Category:Nationality Category:Native American topics Category:Political geography Category:Political science terms

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Honorific-prefix	The Honourable
Name	Kevin Rudd
Honorific-suffix	MP
Office	40th Minister for Foreign Affairs
Primeminister	Julia Gillard
Term start	14 September 2010
Predecessor	Stephen Smith
Office2	26th Prime Minister of AustraliaElections: 2007
Monarch2	Elizabeth II
Governor-general2	Michael JefferyQuentin Bryce
Deputy2	Julia Gillard
Term start2	3 December 2007
Term end2	24 June 2010
Predecessor2	John Howard
Successor2	Julia Gillard
Office3	Leader of the Australian Labor Party
Deputy3	Julia Gillard
Term start3	4 December 2006
Term end3	24 June 2010
Predecessor3	Kim Beazley
Successor3	Julia Gillard
Constituency mp4	Griffith
Parliament4	Australian
Term start4	3 October 1998
Predecessor4	Graeme McDougall
Birth date	September 21, 1957
Birth place	Nambour, Australia
Party	Labor Party
Spouse	Thérèse Rein
Alma mater	Australian National University
Profession	DiplomatPublic servant
Religion	Anglicanism
Signature	Kevin Rudd Signature 2.svg }}

Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian politician. He is the incumbent Minister for Foreign Affairs and 26th Prime Minister of Australia who served from 2007 to 2010. He has been an Australian Labor Party member of the House of Representatives since the 1998 federal election, representing Griffith, Queensland.

Rudd was born in Queensland and grew up on a dairy farm. He joined the Australian Labor Party at the age of 15 and was dux of Nambour State High School in 1974. He studied an arts degree in Asian studies at the Australian National University, majoring in Chinese language and Chinese history. In 1981, he married Thérèse Rein and they have three children. He worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs from 1981 and from 1988 he was Chief of Staff to the Queensland Labor Opposition Leader and later Premier, Wayne Goss. After the Goss government lost office in 1995, Rudd was hired as a Senior China Consultant by the accounting firm KPMG Australia.

Rudd was elected to Parliament in 1998 and was promoted to the Labor frontbench in 2001 as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. In December 2006 he had become the leader of the Labor party and Leader of the Opposition; the party overtook the incumbent Liberal/National coalition government led by John Howard, in both party and leadership polling. Rudd made policy announcements on areas such as industrial relations, climate change, an "education revolution", a National Broadband Network, and health. Labor won the 2007 election, with a 23-seat swing. The Rudd government's first acts included signing the Kyoto Protocol and delivering an apology to Indigenous Australians for the stolen generations. The previous government's industrial relations legislation, WorkChoices, was largely dismantled, Australia's remaining Iraq War combat personnel were withdrawn, and the "Australia 2020 Summit" was held. In response to the Global Financial Crisis, the government provided economic stimulus packages, and Australia was one of the few western countries to avoid the late-2000s recession.

Beginning with Rudd's election to the Labor leadership, the party enjoyed a long period of high popularity in the opinion polls. However, a significant fall in Rudd's personal electoral standing was blamed on a proposed Resource Super Profits Tax and the deferral of the Senate-rejected Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The decline in his government's support in opinion polls and growing dissatisfaction of his leadership within the Labor Party led his deputy, Julia Gillard, to announce on 23 June 2010 that she would contest the leadership in a caucus ballot the following day. Knowing he would be defeated if he contested the leadership, Rudd stepped down as party leader and Prime Minister on the morning of the ballot. He successfully recontested his parliamentary seat at the 2010 election, and was subsequently promoted back to cabinet as Minister for Foreign Affairs in Gillard's Labor minority government.

Early life and family

Rudd was born in Nambour, Queensland to parents Albert Rudd and Margaret née DeVere, and grew up on a dairy farm in nearby Eumundi. At an early age (5–7) he contracted rheumatic fever and spent a considerable time at home convalescing. It damaged his heart, but this was only discovered some 12 years later. Farm life, which required the use of horses and guns, is where he developed his life-long love of horse riding and shooting clay targets. When Rudd was 11, his father, a share farmer and Country Party member, died. Rudd states that the family was required to leave the farm amidst financial difficulty between two to three weeks after the death, though the family of the landowner states that the Rudds didn't have to leave for almost six months. Rudd joined the Australian Labor Party in 1972 at the age of 15. He boarded at Marist College Ashgrove in Brisbane although these years were not happy due to the indignity of poverty and reliance on charity – he was known to be a "charity case" due to his father's sudden death; and, he has since described the school as "... tough, harsh, unforgiving, institutional Catholicism of the old school." Two years later, after she retrained as a nurse, his mother moved the family to Nambour, and Rudd rebuilt his standing through study and scholastic application and was dux of Nambour State High School in 1974. His future Treasurer Wayne Swan attended the same school at the same time, although they did not know each other as Swan was three years ahead. In that year he was also the Queensland winner of the Rotary 'Youth Speaks for Australia' public speaking contest.

Rudd is of English and Irish descent. His paternal 4th great-grandparents were English and of convict heritage: Thomas Rudd and Mary Cable (she was from Essex). Thomas arrived from London, England in 1801, Mary in 1804. Thomas Rudd, a convict, arrived in NSW on board the Earl Cornwallis in 1801. He was convicted of stealing a bag of sugar.

Rudd studied at the Australian National University in Canberra where he resided at Burgmann College and graduated with First Class Honours in Arts (Asian Studies). He majored in Chinese language and Chinese history, became proficient in Mandarin and acquired a Chinese name, Lù Kèwén ( or in ).

Rudd's thesis on Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng was supervised by Pierre Ryckmans, the eminent Belgian-Australian sinologist. During his studies Rudd cleaned the house of political commentator Laurie Oakes to earn money. In 1980 he continued his Chinese studies at the Mandarin Training Center of National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. Delivering the annual Gough Whitlam Lecture at Sydney University on "The Reforming Centre of Australian Politics" in 2008, Rudd praised the former Labor Prime Minister for implementing educational reforms, saying he was:

... a kid who lived Gough Whitlam's dream that every child should have a desk with a lamp on it where he or she could study. A kid whose mum told him after the 1972 election that it might just now be possible for the likes of him to go to university. A kid from the country of no particular means and of no political pedigree who could therefore dream that one day he could make a contribution to our national political life.

In 1981, Rudd married Thérèse Rein whom he had met at a gathering of the Australian Student Christian Movement during his university years. They have three children: Jessica (born 1984), Nicholas (born 1986) and Marcus (born 1993). Rudd's nephew, Van Thanh Rudd is a Melbourne-based artist and activist.

Entry into politics

Rudd joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1981, and served there until 1988. He and his wife spent most of the 1980s overseas posted at the Australian embassies in Stockholm, Sweden, and later in Beijing, People's Republic of China.

Returning to Australia in 1988, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Labor Opposition Leader in Queensland, Wayne Goss. He became Chief of Staff to the Premier when the Labor Party won office 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. In this role 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.

After the Goss government lost office in 1995, Rudd was hired as a Senior China Consultant by the accounting firm KPMG Australia. While in this position, he won the Labor preselection for the Brisbane-area seat of Griffith at the 1996 federal election. Despite being endorsed by the retiring Labor MP, Ben Humphreys, Rudd was defeated by Liberal Graeme McDougall on the eighth count, largely due to a massive swing against Labor in Queensland. Rudd sought a rematch against McDougall in the 1998 election and won on the fifth count.

Member of Parliament

Rudd made his first speech to the Australian House of Representatives on 11 November 1998.

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs: 2001–2005

Rudd was promoted to the Opposition front bench following the 2001 election and appointed Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. In 2002 he met with British intelligence and helped define the position Labor would take in regards to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

There is no debate or dispute as to whether Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. He does. There's no dispute as whether he's in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. He is.

After the fall of Saddam he would criticise the Howard Government over its support for the United States, while maintaining Labor's position of support for the Australian-American alliance.

Well, what Secretary Powell and the US seems to have said is that he now has grave doubts about the accuracy of the case he put to the United Nations about the claim that Iraq possessed biological weapons laboratories – the so-called mobile trailers. And here in Australia, that formed also part of the government's argument on the war. I think what it does is it adds to the fabric of how the Australian people were misled about the reasons for going to war.

Rudd's policy experience and parliamentary performances during the Iraq war made him one of the better known members of the Labor front bench. When Opposition Leader Simon Crean was challenged by his predecessor Kim Beazley in June, Rudd did not publicly commit himself to either candidate. When Crean finally resigned in late November, Rudd was considered a possible candidate for the Labor leadership, however, he announced that he would not run in the leadership ballot, and would instead vote for Kim Beazley.

Rudd was predicted by some commentators to be demoted or moved as a result of his support for Beazley following the election of Mark Latham as Leader, but he retained his portfolio. Relations between Latham and Rudd deteriorated during 2004, especially after Latham made his pledge to withdraw all Australian forces from Iraq by Christmas 2004 without consulting Rudd. After Latham failed to win the October 2004 federal election, Rudd was again spoken of as a possible alternative leader. He retained his foreign affairs portfolio and disavowed any intention of challenging Latham.

When Latham suddenly resigned in January 2005, Rudd was visiting Indonesia and refused to say whether he would be a candidate for the Labor leadership. Such a candidacy would have required him to run against Beazley, his factional colleague. "The important thing for me to do is to consult with my colleagues in the party", he said. After returning from Indonesia, Rudd consulted with Labor MPs in Sydney and Melbourne and announced that he would not contest the leadership. Kim Beazley was subsequently elected leader.

In June 2005 Rudd was given expanded responsibilities as the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Security and, also, the Shadow Minister for Trade.

Leader of the Opposition

A November 2006 Newspoll opinion poll indicated voter support for Rudd was double that for Beazley. In December 2006, Beazley declared open the positions of Leader and Deputy leader of the Labor Party, and Rudd announced his candidacy for the leadership. Fellow Labor MP Julia Gillard ran alongside Rudd for Deputy Leader against Jenny Macklin. The vote took place on 4 December 2006. Rudd was elected Leader with 49 votes to Beazley's 39. Gillard was elected unopposed as Deputy Leader after Macklin withdrew from the ballot.

At his first press conference as leader, having thanked Beazley and former deputy leader Jenny Macklin, Rudd said he would offer a "new style of leadership" and would be an "alternative, not just an echo" of the Howard government. He outlined the areas of industrial relations, the war in Iraq, climate change, Australian federalism, social justice and the future of Australia's manufacturing industry as major policy concerns. Rudd also stressed his long experience in state government and also as a diplomat and in business before entering federal politics.

Rudd and the Labor Party soon overtook the government in both party and leadership polling. The new leader maintained a high media profile with major announcements on an "education revolution", federalism, climate change, a National Broadband Network, and the domestic car industry. In March 2007 the government raised questions over a series of meetings Rudd had had with former West Australian Labor Premier Brian Burke during 2005, alleging that Rudd had been attempting to use Burke's influence to become Labor leader (after losing office, Burke had spent time in prison before returning to politics as a lobbyist). Rudd said that this had not been the purpose of the three meetings and said that they had been arranged by his colleague Graham Edwards, the Member for Cowan.

From 2002, Rudd appeared regularly in interviews and topical discussions on the popular breakfast television program ''Sunrise'', along with federal Liberal MP Joe Hockey. This was credited with helping raise Rudd's public profile. Rudd and Hockey ended these appearances in April 2007 citing the increasing political pressures of an election year.

On 19 August 2007, it was revealed that Rudd, while on a visit to New York as opposition foreign affairs spokesman, had visited a strip club, in September 2003, with ''New York Post'' editor Col Allan and Labor backbencher Warren Snowdon. By way of explanation, Rudd said: "I had had too much to drink, I have no recollection (nor does Mr Snowdon) of any incident occurring at the nightclub – or of being asked to leave". "It is our recollection that we left within about an hour". The incident generated a lot of media coverage, but made no impact on Rudd's popularity in the polls. Indeed, some people believe that the incident may have enabled Rudd to appear "more human" and lifted his popularity.

2007 election victory

Electoral writs were issued for an Australian federal election on 17 October 2007.

On 21 October 2007, Rudd presented strongly in a televised debate against incumbent prime minister John Howard.

On 14 November 2007, Kevin Rudd officially launched the Labor Party's election campaign with a policy of fiscal restraint, usually considered the electoral strength of the opposing Liberal party. Rudd proposed Labor spending measures totalling $2.3 billion, contrasting them to $9.4 billion Rudd claimed the Liberals had promised, declaring: ''"Today, I am saying loud and clear that this sort of reckless spending must stop."''

The election was held on 24 November 2007. Labor's win was coined a 'Ruddslide' by the media and was underpinned by the considerable support from Rudd's home state of Queensland, with the state result recording a two party preferred swing of 7.53 percent. The nationwide swing was 5.44 percent to Labor, the 3rd largest swing at a federal election since two party estimates began in 1949.

As foreshadowed during the election campaign, on 29 November Rudd directly chose his frontbench, breaking with more than a century of Labor tradition whereby the frontbench was elected by the Labor caucus, with the leader then given the right to allocate portfolios.

Prime Minister

On 3 December 2007, Rudd was sworn in as Prime Minister by the Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery. Rudd was the first Prime Minister to make no mention of the Queen in his oath of office.

Kevin Rudd was the second Queenslander to lead his party to a federal election victory, the first being Andrew Fisher in 1910. Rudd was the first Prime Minister since World War II not to come from either New South Wales or Victoria and the fourth prime minister from Queensland.

Early initiatives of the Rudd Government included the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, a Parliamentary Apology to the Stolen Generations and the 2020 Summit.

During their first two years in office, Rudd and his government set records for popularity in Newspoll polling.

By 2010, the Prime Minister's approval ratings had dropped significantly and controversies had arisen over management of economic stimulus following the Global Financial Crisis; the delay of the government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme; asylum seeker policies; and debate over a proposed "super profits" tax on the mining industry.

The United States diplomatic cables leaks reveal that Robert McCallum, the former US ambassador to Australia, described Rudd as a ‘control freak’ and ‘a micro-manager’ obsessed with managing the media cycle rather than engaging in collaborative decision making". Diplomats also criticized Rudd's foreign policy record and considered Rudd's ‘missteps’ largely arose from his propensity to make ‘snap announcements without consulting other countries or within the Australian government’.

On 23 June 2010, following significant media speculation and after it became apparent Rudd had lost the support of key factional heads within the Labor Party, deputy prime minister Julia Gillard requested a leadership ballot for the following day, which Rudd announced he would himself contest.

Environment

In opposition, Rudd called climate change "the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time" and called for a cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 60% before 2050. On 3 December 2007, as his first official act after being sworn in, Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol. On 15 December 2008, Rudd released a White Paper on reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. The White Paper included a plan to introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2010 that is known as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and gave a target range for Australia's greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 of between 5% and 15% less than 2000 levels. The White Paper was criticised by the Federal Government's climate change advisor, Professor Ross Garnaut. Rudd criticised the opposition Liberal Party for its refusal to support the new legislation ("What absolute political cowardice, what absolute failure of leadership, what absolute failure of logic ...") but on 4 May 2009 announced that the Government would delay implementing an emissions trading scheme until 2011. Rudd also deferred the CPRS legislation until 2013.

Rudd was unable to achieve any significant action on a national response to climate change, and abandoned his vision in the face of political opposition. Many of Rudd's minor climate change initiatives were scrapped or slashed by Julia Gillard.

Iraq War

In accordance with a Multinational Force Iraq agreement with the new Iraqi Government, Labor's plan to withdraw the Australian Defence Force "combat" contingent was completed on 28 July 2009, three days ahead of the deadline. In mid-2010, there were about 65 ADF personnel remaining in Iraq supporting UN operations or the Australian Embassy.

Afghanistan War

While shadow minister for foreign affairs, Rudd said that Afghanistan was 'terrorism central'. In July 2005 he said:

:It's time to recognise once and for all that terrorism central is Afghanistan. You see, a lot of Jemaah Islamiah's terrorist operations in South East Asia are financed by the reconstitution of the opium crop in Afghanistan – $2.3 billion a year worth of narco-finance flowing out of Afghanistan into terrorist groups here in our region, our neighbourhood, our backyard.

As Prime Minister, Rudd has continued to support Australian military involvement in Afghanistan, despite the growing number of Australian casualties. On 29 April 2009, Rudd committed 450 extra troops to the region bringing the total to 1550. Explaining the deployment he said:

:A measured increase in Australian forces in Afghanistan will enhance the security of Australian citizens, given that so many terrorists attacking Australians in the past have been trained in Afghanistan.

On a November 2009 visit to Afghanistan, Rudd told Australian troops: "We from Australia will remain for the long haul." In April 2010, the Australian Government decided not to commit further troops to Uruzgan province to replace Dutch forces when they withdraw, but increased the numbers of diplomatic, development aid, and police personnel to around 50 with military effort and civilian work focussed on Uruzgan.

The United States diplomatic cables leak reported Rudd's criticisms of Australia's European allies in the Afghanistan campaign.

Domestic policies

Parliamentary apology to the Stolen Generations

As the parliament's first order of business, on 13 February 2008, Rudd read an apology directed to Indigenous Australians for the ''stolen generations''. The apology, for the policies of successive parliaments and governments, passed unanimously as a motion by both houses of parliament, and was publicly well received; most criticisms were of Labor for refusing to provide victims with monetary compensation as recommended in the ''Bringing them Home'' report, and that the apology would not alleviate disadvantage amongst Indigenous Australians. Rudd pledged the government to bridging the gap between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australian health, education and living conditions, and in a way that respects their rights to self-determination.

Industrial relations

WorkChoices, the industrial relations regime introduced by the Howard government, was overhauled. Rudd's 2007 policy included the phasing out of Australian Workplace Agreements over a period of up to five years, the establishment of a simpler awards system as a safety net, the restoration of unfair dismissal laws for companies with under 100 employees (probation period of 12 months for companies with less than 15 employees), and the retention of the Australian Building and Construction Commission until 2010. It retains the illegality of secondary boycotts, the right of employers to lock workers out, restriction of union right of entry to workplaces, and restrictions on workers' right to strike. Rudd also outlined the establishment of a single industrial relations bureaucracy called Fair Work Australia, which will play a far more interventionist role than the Howard Government's Fair Pay Commission.

Some unions claim it to be "WorkChoices Lite", although the most fundamental elements will be reversed and since then, changes have been made to the legislation which accommodate some union demands. This led to criticism of the legislation by employer groups, who claimed in April 2009 that more rigid and expensive wage and other outcomes with employees would be particularly difficult for many businesses to afford during an economic downturn.

Economy

:''See also: 2008 Australian federal budget, 2009 Australian federal budget''

Upon election to office, the Rudd government announced a five point plan to combat inflation. The first budget of the Rudd government was delivered by Treasurer Wayne Swan in May 2008 and a projected surplus of $21.7 billion was announced. As the global recession began to take hold, the Government guaranteed bank deposits and announced two stimulatory spending packages. The first was worth $10.4 billion and announced in late 2008, and the second worth $42 billion was announced in February 2009 and included $900 dollar cash payments to resident taxpayers who paid net tax in the 2007–08 financial year. After initially raising interest rates to combat inflation, The Reserve Bank cut official interest rates several times in increments of up to 1 percent, and fell to 3 percent in May 2009, the lowest since 1960. The second budget, released in May 2009, projected a $57.6 billion deficit for 2009–10. The majority of the deficit was created by a loss of taxation revenue as a result of the recession, with the rest made up in stimulus and other spending. The downturn was expected to remove $210 billion in taxation revenue from the budget over the next four years.

Following the start of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, increased exports and consumer spending helped the Australian economy avoid recession in 2009. Australia was the only western economy to do so.

As part of its economic stimulus program, the government offered householders a rebate for ceiling insulation. Rudd demoted Peter Garrett, the minister responsible for the program, before abandoning the program altogether in 2010 after the scheme was blamed for housefires and 4 deaths. The Building the Education Revolution program sought to stimulate the nationwide economy by employing construction workers in school building developments, but came under media scrutiny following allegations of overpricing and bad value for money.

The Rudd Government's third budget in 2010 projected a $40.8 billion deficit for 2010–11 but forecast that Australia would return to surplus by 2012–13. The government proposed a "super profits" tax on the mining industry and included $12 billion in revenue from the proposal in the forecast, although the tax had not been passed by the Senate.

Australia 2020 Summit

In February 2008 Rudd announced the Australia 2020 Summit, held from 19–20 April 2008, which brought together 1000 leading Australians to discuss ten major areas of policy innovation. Among the initiatives supported at the event, the summit voted in favour of a plebiscite on Australia "relinquishing ties" to the United Kingdom followed by a referendum on the model for an Australian republic, a bill of rights, the re-formation of an Indigenous peak representative body similar to ATSIC, (which had been abolished by the Howard Government), the introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme, and a review of the taxation system.

Findings released in April 2009 reported that nine out of the 1000 submitted ideas were to be immediately enacted and that the government was deliberating on other ideas proposed. By mid-2010, among the key reform ideas suggested, Prime Minister Rudd had sought to introduce an ETS, but postponed it after failing to secure passage through the senate; formed a consultative committee on a Bill of Rights then rejected its recommendation for implementation; established the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples in 2010; commissioned the Henry Review of taxation (on the basis of which the Rudd Government proposed a new "super-profits" tax on mining); and Rudd had described the issue of a vote on a republic as not being "a priority".

Education

During the election, Rudd promised a "Digital Education Revolution", including provision of a computer on the desk of every upper secondary student. The program initially stalled with state governments asserting that the proposed funding was inadequate. The federal government increased proposed funding from $1.2 billion to $2 billion, and did not mandate that a computer be provided to each upper secondary student.

Immigration

As Prime Minister, Rudd professed his belief in a 'Big Australia', while his government increased the immigration quota after to around 300,000 people. In 2010, Rudd appointed Tony Burke as population minister to examine population goals.

In 2008, the government adjusted the Mandatory detention policies established by the Keating and Howard governments and declared an end to the Pacific Solution. Boat arrivals increased considerably during 2009 and the Opposition said this was due to the government's policy adjustments, the Government said it was due to "push factors". After a fatal explosion on an asylum seeker boat in April 2009, Rudd said: "People smugglers are the vilest form of human life." Opposition frontbencher Tony Abbott said that Kevin Rudd was inept and hypocritical in his handling of the issue during the Oceanic Viking affair of October 2009. In April 2010, the Rudd government suspended processing new claims by Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers, who comprised 80 per cent of all boat arrivals, for three and six months respectively.

Taxation

Rudd commissioned the Henry Tax Review, to undertake a "root and branch" review of the Australian taxation system. In 2010, the Rudd government pursued its proposal for a new 40% tax on the "super profits" of resource companies to offset a lower corporate tax rate and some adjustments to superannuation. In the face of strong opposition from the mining industry, the government exempted itself from its own guidelines on taxpayer-funded advertising and launched an advertising campaign in support of its tax policy proposal. During the 2007 election campaign, Rudd had described tax payer funded political advertising as "a long-term cancer on our democracy", but he said that a government funded campaign was needed in 2010 on this issue.

Healthcare

Rudd announced a significant and far-reaching strategic reform to Australian healthcare in 2010. However, this was not pursued beyond in-principle agreements with Labor State and Territory governments, and was scrapped by Julia Gillard during her first year in office.

Political positions

Economics

In his first speech to parliament, Rudd stated that:

Competitive markets are massive and generally efficient generators of economic wealth. They must therefore have a central place in the management of the economy. But markets sometimes fail, requiring direct government intervention through instruments such as industry policy. There are also areas where the public good dictates that there should be no market at all. We are not afraid of a vision in the Labor Party, but nor are we afraid of doing the hard policy yards necessary to turn that vision into reality. Parties of the Centre Left around the world are wrestling with a similar challenge – the creation of a competitive economy while advancing the overriding imperative of a just society. Some call this the 'third way'. The nomenclature is unimportant. What is important is that it is a repudiation of Thatcherism and its Australian derivatives represented opposite. It is in fact a new formulation of the nation's economic and social imperatives.

Rudd is critical of free market economists such as Friedrich Hayek, although Rudd describes himself as "basically a conservative when it comes to questions of public financial management", pointing to his slashing of public service jobs as a Queensland governmental advisor.

In ''The Longest Decade'' by George Megalogenis, Rudd reflected on his views of economic reform undertaken in the past couple of decades:

The Hawke and Keating governments delivered a massive program of economic reform, and they didn't shy away from taking on their own political base when they knew it was in the national interest. Think tariffs. Think cuts to the marginal tax rate. Think enterprise bargaining. Think how unpopular all of those were with the trade union movement of Australia. Mr Howard, on the other hand, never took on his own political base in the prosecution of any significant economic reform. His reform agenda never moved out of the ideological straitjacket of the 1970s and 1980s. Think industrial relations. Think consumption tax. And think also of the explosion in untargeted welfare... When the economic circumstances change, and the demands of a competitive economy change, Mr Howard never adjusted and never took the lead when it came to new ideas. Look at climate change. Look at infrastructure policy. Look at education policy. Look at early childhood education. There's a mountain of economic evidence about the importance of those policy domains to Australia's future.

In early 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Rudd stated "that the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed", and that "Neo-liberalism and the free-market fundamentalism it has produced has been revealed as little more than personal greed dressed up as an economic philosophy. And, ironically, it now falls to social democracy to prevent liberal capitalism from cannibalising itself." Rudd called for a new era of "social capitalism" from social democrats such as himself and U.S. President Barack Obama to "support a global financial system that properly balances private incentive with public responsibility".

Nationhood and foreign policy

As shadow foreign minister, Rudd reformulated Labor's foreign policy in terms of "Three Pillars": engagement with the UN, engagement with Asia, and the US alliance.

Although disagreeing with the original commitment to the Iraq War, Rudd supports the continued deployment of Australian troops in Iraq, but not the continued deployment of combat troops. Rudd was also in favour of Australia's military presence in Afghanistan.

Rudd backs the road map for peace plan and defended Israel's actions during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, condemning Hezbollah and Hamas for violating Israeli territory.

As Prime Minister, he also pledged support for East Timor, stating that Australian troops would remain in East Timor for as long as East Timor's government wanted them to.

Rudd also gave his support for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, before Australia officially recognised the republic. This decision sparked protests of the Serbian Australian community against Rudd.

The question of Republicanism in Australia was raised following the failed 1999 referendum, and although Rudd is a republican, he indicated that no referendum would take place in the near future. In 2008 Rudd recommended the appointment of Quentin Bryce as the first female Governor-General of Australia to Queen Elizabeth II.

Society and religion

Some commentators have described Rudd as a social conservative. While moving to remove financial discrimination against LGBT couples, he has remained opposed to same-sex marriage:

I have a pretty basic view on this, as reflected in the position adopted by our party, and that is, that marriage is between a man and a woman.

In a conscience vote in 2006, Rudd supported legislation to transfer regulatory authority for the abortion-inducing drug RU486 from the federal Minister For Health to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, removing the minister's veto on the use of RU486 in Australia. Rudd said that "For me and for the reasons I have outlined, the life of the unborn is of great importance. And having tested these reasons with men and women of faith, and men and women of science, that I've decided not to oppose this bill. "

In another 2006 Parliamentary conscience vote, Mr Rudd voted against legislation to expand embryonic stem cell research

Rudd and his family attend the Anglican church of St John the Baptist in Bulimba in his electorate. Although raised a Roman Catholic, Rudd began attending Anglican services in the 1980s with his wife. A report by The Australian quoted that Rudd embraced Anglicanism but at the same time did not formally renounce his Catholic faith.

Rudd is the mainstay of the parliamentary prayer group in Parliament House, Canberra. He is vocal about his Christianity and has given a number of prominent interviews to the Australian religious press on the topic. Rudd has defended church representatives engaging with policy debates, particularly with respect to WorkChoices legislation, climate change, global poverty, therapeutic cloning and asylum seekers. In an essay in ''The Monthly'', he argued:

A [truly] Christian perspective on contemporary policy debates may not prevail. It must nonetheless be argued. And once heard, it must be weighed, together with other arguments from different philosophical traditions, in a fully contestable secular polity. A Christian perspective, informed by a social gospel or Christian socialist tradition, should not be rejected contemptuously by secular politicians as if these views are an unwelcome intrusion into the political sphere. If the churches are barred from participating in the great debates about the values that ultimately underpin our society, our economy and our polity, then we have reached a very strange place indeed.

He cites Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a personal inspiration in this regard.

In May 2008, Rudd was drawn into the controversy over photographic artist Bill Henson and his work depicting naked adolescents as part of a show due to open at an inner-city gallery in Sydney. In a televised interview, Rudd stated that he found the images "absolutely revolting" and that they had "no artistic merit". These views swiftly drew censure from members of the 'creative stream' who attended the recent 2020 Summit convened by Rudd, led by actor Cate Blanchett.

When in Canberra, Rudd and Rein worship at St John the Baptist Church, Reid, where they were married. Rudd often does a "door stop" interview for the media when leaving the church yard.

Resignation as Prime Minister

Leadership challenge and resignation

On 23 June 2010, the ''Sydney Morning Herald'' reported that Rudd's chief of staff, Alister Jordan, had talked to over half the Labor caucus to gauge the level of Rudd's support within the party. This followed significant media speculation that his deputy, Julia Gillard, would attempt a leadership challenge. Late that evening, after it became clear he had lost the support of key factional leaders, Rudd announced that a leadership ballot would take place between himself and Gillard on 24 June, which he would be contesting. At the meeting, it was clear that Gillard had the numbers to win and Rudd opted not to contest, stepping down as both party leader and Prime Minister. Rudd was not included in Gillard's reshuffled ministry, though she committed to appoint him to a senior cabinet position if the Labor Party was re-elected.

Following the leadership challenge, Bill Shorten, the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services and key Parliamentary member of the Labor Party's Right faction, nominated the government's handling of the insulation program; the sudden announcement of change of policy on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme; and the way in which they had "introduced the debate" about the Resource Super Profits Tax as the key considerations which had led to a collapse in support for Rudd's leadership of the party.

Barry Cohen, a former minister in the Hawke government, said that many in the Labor party caucus felt ignored by Rudd's centralist leadership style, and his at times insulting and rude treatment of staff and other ministers. Many were willing to overlook this due to his immense popularity, but when Rudd's poll numbers began to drop in late 2009 and 2010, they wanted to install a leader more able to establish consensus and involve the party caucus as a whole. Rudd is the first Australian Prime Minister to be removed from office by his own party during his first term.

2010 campaign

Rudd recontested his seat of Griffith for the 2010 federal election on 21 August. He began his election campaign with only local appearances. Early in the campaign, he suffered abdominal pain and underwent surgery to remove his gall bladder. His first public statements after the operation were in an interview with ABC Radio National's Phillip Adams for ''Late Night Live'', receiving wide national coverage; in it, he denied being the source of the political leaks concerning Julia Gillard. Upon a request from Prime Minister Gillard, Rudd later agreed to join the 2010 national campaign in order to boost the Labor government's chances of re-election.

Foreign Minister

Rudd was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Gillard government and was sworn into this position on 14 September 2010. He represented Gillard at a UN General Assembly meeting in September 2010.

Material relating to Kevin Rudd's term as prime minister was included in the United States diplomatic cables leaks released en masse by Wikileaks in 2010. As foreign minister, Rudd denounced the publication of classified documents by wikileaks. The Australian media extensively reported purported references to Rudd in the cables — including frank discussions between Rudd and US officials regarding China and Afghanistan; and negative assessments of some of Rudd's foreign policy initiatives and leadership style, written in confidence for the US government by the US Ambassador to Australia. See main article: Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (Australia)

Prior to his December 2010 visit to Israel, Rudd informed the ''The Australian'' newspaper of a new policy position on Israeli nuclear facilities, saying that they should be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman rejected the call.

Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution and resignation of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Rudd called for "constitutional reform and a clear timetable towards free and fair elections".

In response to the 2011 Libyan uprising, Rudd announced in early March 2011 that a no-fly zone should be enforced by the international community as a "lesser of two evils" to prevent dictator Muammar Gaddafi from using the Libyan airforce to attack protesters and rebels. ''The Age'' and other media outlets reported this as representing a rift between Rudd and Prime Minister Gillard, and said that US officials in Canberra had sought official clarification on what the Australian government was proposing. Speaking from Washington, Ms Gillard said in response that the United Nations Security Council should consider a "full range" of options to deal with the situation, and that Australia was not planning to send forces to enforce a no-fly zone.

Following the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Rudd announced that in his conversation with Japanese foreign minister Takeaki Matsumoto, he had offered Australian field hospitals and disaster victim identification teams to assist with recovery. He also said he had offered Australian atomic expertise and requested urgent briefings following an explosion at a nuclear plant, telling ABC TV: "We and the rest of the international community need urgent briefings on the precise status of these reactors".

Heart operation

On 20 July 2011, Rudd announced that he was to undergo heart surgery in early August, to replace his aortic valve, a similar operation to the one he had some 20 years before, as that valve was now wearing out. In a tweet soon after the press conference, he said that he hoped people would have "a chat about importance of organ donation."

See also

List of Prime Ministers of Queen Elizabeth II

Rudd Ministry

References

Bibliography

Crabb, Annabel. ''Rise of the Ruddbot:Observations from the Gallery''. Melbourne : Black Inc., 2010. ISBN 978-1-86395-483-9

Hartcher, Peter. ''To the Bitter End : The Dramatic Story of the Fall of John Howard and the Rise of Kevin Rudd.'' Crows Nest, NSW:Allen & Unwin, 2009. ISBN 978-1-74175-623-4

Macklin, Robert. ''Kevin Rudd : The Biography'', Camberwell, Vic.: Penguin Books Australia, 2007. ISBN 978-0-670-07135-7

Marr, David. ''Power Trip : The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd'', Melbourne : Black Inc., 2010. [''Quarterly Essay'', Issue 38] ISBN 978-1-86395-477-8

Stuart, Nicholas, ''Kevin Rudd : An Unauthorised Political Biography'', Melbourne:Scribe, 2007. ISBN 978-1-921215-58-2

Weller, Patrick, ''Kevin Rudd:The Making of a Prime Minister'', Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-522-85748-1

External links

Official Parliamentary homepage for Kevin Rudd

BBC Profile – Kevin Rudd

"Kevin Rudd: The early years | Daily Telegraph" – Images

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Honorific-prefix	The Right Honourable
Name	Helen Clark
Honorific-suffix	ONZ SSI
Office	Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme
1blankname
1namedata	Ban Ki-Moon
Term start	17 April 2009
Predecessor	Kemal Derviş
Office2	37th Prime Minister of New Zealand
Monarch2	Elizabeth II
Governor-general2	Michael Hardie BoysSilvia CartwrightAnand Satyanand
Deputy2	Jim AndertonMichael Cullen
Term start2	5 December 1999
Term end2	19 November 2008
Predecessor2	Jenny Shipley
Successor2	John Key
Office3	27th Leader of the Opposition
Deputy3	Michael Cullen
Term start3	1 December 1993
Term end3	5 December 1999
Predecessor3	Mike Moore
Successor3	Jenny Shipley
Office4	11th Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand
Primeminister4	Geoffrey PalmerMike Moore
Term start4	8 August 1989
Term end4	2 November 1990
Predecessor4	Geoffrey Palmer
Successor4	Don McKinnon
Office5	29th Minister of Health
Primeminister5	David LangeGeoffrey PalmerMike Moore
Term start5	30 January 1989
Term end5	2 November 1990
Predecessor5	David Caygill
Successor5	Simon Upton
Constituency mp6	Mount Albert
Term start6	28 November 1981
Term end6	17 April 2009
Parliament6	New Zealand
Predecessor6	Warren Freer
Successor6	David Shearer
Majority6	14,749
Birth date	February 26, 1950
Birth place	Hamilton, New Zealand
Signature	Signature Helen Clark.jpg
Party	Labour Party
Spouse	Peter Davis
Alma mater	University of Auckland
Religion	Agnosticism }}

Helen Elizabeth Clark, ONZ (born 26 February 1950) is the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, the third-highest UN position, and was the 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand for three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2008. To date she is the fifth longest serving Prime Minister of New Zealand. She led the Labour Party from 1993 until it lost the 2008 general election. Before resigning from Parliament in April 2009, Clark was Labour's foreign affairs spokeswoman and MP for the Mount Albert electorate which she had held since 1981. ''Forbes'' magazine ranked her 20th most powerful woman in the world in 2006.

Early life

Clark was the eldest of four daughters of a farming family at Te Pahu in the Waikato Region. Her mother, Margaret McMurray, of Irish birth, was a primary school teacher. Her father, George, was a farmer. Clark studied at Te Pahu Primary School, at Epsom Girls' Grammar School in Auckland and at the University of Auckland, where she majored in politics and graduated with an MA (Honours) in 1974. Her thesis focused on rural political behaviour and representation.

As a teenager Clark became politically active, protesting against the Vietnam War and campaigning against foreign military bases in New Zealand. She has declared herself agnostic.

In 1971 Clark assisted Labour candidates to the Auckland City Council. Clark was a junior lecturer in political studies at the University of Auckland from 1973 to 1975. In 1974 she sought the nomination for the Auckland Central electorate, but lost to Richard Prebble. She instead stood for the Piako, a National safe seat. Clark studied abroad on a University Grants Committee post-graduate scholarship in 1976, and then lectured in political studies at Auckland again while undertaking her PhD (which she never completed) from 1977 until her election to Parliament in 1981 (her father supported the National Party that election).

She married sociologist Peter Davis, her partner of five years at that time, shortly before that election (under pressure from some members of the New Zealand Labour Party to marry despite her own feelings about marriage her biography reports that she cried throughout the ceremony, although she attributes that to a headache). Dr Davis is a professor in medical sociology and heads the Sociology Department at the University of Auckland.

Clark has worked actively in the New Zealand Labour Party for most of her life. She served as a member of the Party's New Zealand executive from 1978 until September 1988 and again from April 1989. She chaired the University of Auckland Princes Street branch of the Labour Party during her studies, becoming active alongside future Labour Party politicians including Richard Prebble, David Caygill, Margaret Wilson, and Richard Northey. Clark held the positions of president of the Labour Youth Council, executive member of the Party's Auckland Regional Council, secretary of the Labour Women's Council and member of the Policy Council.

She represented the New Zealand Labour Party at the congresses of the Socialist International and of the Socialist International Women in 1976, 1978, 1983 and 1986, at an Asia-Pacific Socialist Organisation Conference held in Sydney in 1981, and at the Socialist International Party Leaders' Meeting in Sydney in 1991.

Member of Parliament

Helen Clark first gained election to the New Zealand House of Representatives in the 1981 general election as one of four women who entered Parliament on that occasion. In winning the Mount Albert electorate in Auckland, she became the second woman elected to represent an Auckland electorate, and the seventeenth woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament. At the 2005 general election Clark won 66% of the electorate votes, or 20,918 votes with a 14,749 majority. During her first term in the House (1981–1984), she became a member of the Statutes Revision Committee. In her second term (1984–1987), she chaired the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Select Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control, both of which combined with the Defence Select Committee in 1985 to form a single committee.

Cabinet Minister

In 1987, Clark became a Cabinet Minister in the Fourth Labour Government, led by David Lange (1984–1989), Geoffrey Palmer (1989–1990) and Mike Moore (1990), first as Minister of Housing and as Minister of Conservation, then as Minister of Health and later as Deputy Prime Minister.

Clark served as Minister of Conservation from August 1987 until January 1989 and as Minister of Housing from August 1987 until August 1989. She became Minister of Health in January 1989 and Minister of Labour and Deputy Prime Minister in August 1989. She chaired the Cabinet Social Equity Committee and became a member of the Cabinet Policy Committee, of the Cabinet Committee on Chief Executives, of the Cabinet Economic Development and Employment Committee, of the Cabinet Expenditure Review Committee, of the Cabinet State Agencies Committee, of the Cabinet Honours Appointments and Travel Committee and of the Cabinet Domestic and External Security Committee.

Leader of the Opposition

From October 1990 until December 1993 Clark held the posts of Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Opposition spokesperson for Health and Labour and member of the Social Services Select Committee and of the Labour Select Committee. After the National Party won the 1993 general election with a majority of one seat, Clark challenged Mike Moore for the leadership of the parliamentary Labour Party and became Leader of the Opposition on 1 December 1993. She led the Opposition during the National-led Governments of Jim Bolger (1990–1997) and Jenny Shipley (1997–1999).

Prime minister

When the New Zealand Labour Party came into office as part of a coalition following the 1999 election, Clark became the second female Prime Minister of New Zealand and the first to have won office at an election. (The previous Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley took office as the result of a mid-term party-leadership challenge.) During her term in office women held a number of prominent elected and appointed offices in New Zealand, such as the Governor-General, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Chief Justice.

Clark was Prime Minister and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage from 1999 until 2008. She also had ministerial responsibility for the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and for Ministerial Services. Her particular interests included social policy and international affairs.

As Prime Minister, Helen Clark was a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilise the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.

As Leader of the Labour Party, Clark negotiated the formation of successive minority coalition governments. Even though some commentators saw stable government within the relatively new MMP electoral system as unlikely, Clark's supporters credit her with maintaining three terms of stable MMP government.

First term

The first such coalition (1999–2002) linked the Labour Party with the Alliance Party (1999).

In 2000, Labour MP Chris Carter investigated the background of one of Clark's Cabinet colleagues, Māori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels. During the investigation, Clark referred to John Yelash as a murderer. However, the court system had convicted Yelash of manslaughter. Yelash sued Clark for defamation, resulting in an out-of-court settlement.

In 2000, the then Police Commissioner, Peter Doone, resigned after the ''Sunday Star-Times'' alleged he had prevented the breath testing of his partner Robyn, who had driven the car they occupied, by telling the officer "that won't be necessary". Both Doone and the officer involved denied this happened. Doone sued the ''Sunday Star-Times'' for defamation in 2005 but the paper revealed they had checked the story with Clark. She confirmed this, but denied that she had made attempts to get Doone to resign and defended being the source as "by definition I cannot leak". Helen Clark also responded by saying that National's friends had funded Mr Doone's defamation-suit. Opinion on the significance of this incident varied.

In a report in the ''People's Daily'', Chinese President Jiang Zemin referred to Clark as an "old friend". He hoped to "establish bilateral long-term and stable overall cooperative relations with a healthy development geared to the 21st century", and "broad prospects for bilateral economic cooperation". Clark had strongly supported China's entry into the WTO.

Clark signed a painting for a charity-auction that someone else had painted. A political controversy arose about it, and after it emerged that she had not painted it, Opposition politicians referred the matter to the New Zealand Police. The Police found evidence for a ''prima facie'' case of forgery, but determined that it was not in the public interest to prosecute. A staff member bought the painting back and destroyed it.

In 1999, Clark was involved in a defamation case in the High Court of New Zealand with Auckland orthopaedic surgeon Joe Brownlee, resulting in Clark making an unreserved apology. The case centered on a press statement issued by Clark criticising Brownlee, triggered by a constituent's complaint over the outcome of a hip replacement. Clark admitted the criticism was unjustified in that the complication suffered by her constituent was rare, unforeseen and unavoidable.

Second term

The Alliance Party split in 2002 over the Government's commitment of New Zealand troops to the War in Afghanistan, leading to the imminent dissolution of Labour's coalition of that party. As a consequence, Clark called an early election and then went into coalition with Jim Anderton's Progressive Party, a spin-off of the Alliance Party (2002, with parliamentary confidence and supply coming from United Future and a "good-faith" agreement with the Green Party).

}} Clark believes a New Zealand republic is "inevitable", and her term in office saw a number of alleged moves in this direction, under her government's policy of building national identity. Examples include the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council in London and the foundation of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, the abolition of titular Knighthood and Damehood honours (restored in 2009), and the abolition of the title "Queen's Counsel" (replaced by "Senior Counsel").

In 2002, Clark took an unprecedented step and said sorry for New Zealand's treatment of Samoa during the colonial era. Clark's apology was made in Apia during the 40th anniversary of Samoa's independence and televised live to New Zealand where Samoans applauded the prime minister's gesture.

In March 2003, referring to the U.S. led coalition's actions in the Iraq War, Clark told the newspaper ''Sunday Star Times'' that, "I don't think that 11 September under a Gore presidency would have had this consequence for Iraq." She later sent a letter to Washington apologising for any offence that her comment may have caused.

On 17 July 2004, a motorcade involving police, Diplomatic Protection Squad, and Ministerial Services staff reached speeds of up to 172 km/h when taking Clark and Cabinet Minister Jim Sutton from Waimate to Christchurch Airport so she could attend a rugby union match in Wellington. The courts subsequently convicted the drivers involved for driving offences, but appeals resulted in the quashing of these convictions in December 2005 and August 2006. Clark said that she was busy working in the back seat and had no influence or role in the decision to speed and did not realise the speed of her vehicle.

Third term

In 2005, following the election of that year, the Labour Party and the Progressive Party renewed their coalition, gaining supply-and-confidence support from both New Zealand First and United Future in exchange for giving the leaders of those parties ministerial positions outside Cabinet.

On 24 July 2008, Clark passed Sir Robert Muldoon to become New Zealand's sixth-longest-serving Prime Minister, and on 27 October 2008 she passed Edward Stafford's combined terms to become the 5th longest-serving Prime Minister.

On 8 February 2008, Clark became the longest serving leader of the Labour Party in its history (although some dispute exists over when Harry Holland became leader), having served for 14 years, 69 days, by 26 October 2008 she had passed Holland's longest possible term and her position as longest serving Labour Party leader was put beyond doubt. Clark conceded defeat following the 2008 general election to John Key and announced that she was standing down as Labour Party leader. On 11 November 2008 Clark was replaced by Phil Goff as leader of the Labour Party.

In 2006, Forbes ranked Clark 20th of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women" and then at 56th in 2008.

United Nations Development Programme

Helen Clark became the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme on 17 April 2009, and is the first woman to lead the organization. She is also the Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes and departments working on development issues. The current government of New Zealand strongly supported her nomination, along with Australia, the Pacific Island nations and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown. She also received the support of the five countries on the UNDP board (Iran, Haiti, Serbia, The Netherlands and Tanzania) and was unanimously confirmed by the General Assembly on 31 March. She was officially sworn in by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 27 April 2009.

In this position, ''Forbes'' deemed her the 61st most powerful woman in the world.

Honours

The government of the Solomon Islands awarded Clark (together with John Howard) the Star of the Solomon Islands in 2005 in recognition of New Zealand's role in restoring law and order in the Solomon Islands. This award allows her to use the post-nominal letters "SSI".

}} In January 2008 Clark won the United Nations Environment Programme Champions of the Earth award in recognition of the government’s promotion of sustainability initiatives.

Clark is an Honorary Member of The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

Clark was the patron of the New Zealand Rugby League between 2002 and 2011 and has served as the patron of the Mt Albert Lions rugby league club for over 20 years.

In January 2009, two months after losing office, Clark was voted Greatest Living New Zealander in an opt-in website poll run by the ''New Zealand Herald''. In a close race she received 25 percent of the vote, ahead of Victoria Cross recipient Willie Apiata at 21 percent. Current Prime Minister John Key said he was not surprised by the poll, saying "... she is well thought of as a New Zealand Prime Minister."

In April 2009 she was awarded honorary Doctor of Laws degree by University of Auckland.

She was awarded New Zealand's top honour, the Order of New Zealand, in 2009.

In popular culture

A satirical book, later adapted as a play, titled ''On the conditions and possibilities of Helen Clark taking me as her young lover'' was published in 2005. Clark has also guest-starred on ''bro'Town'', the New Zealand animated television series.

See also

Politics of New Zealand

New Zealand

List of Nuclear-Free Future Award recipients

Notes

References

Further reading

:''This is a book intended for children.'' :''A paper by John Henderson and Seishi Gomibuchi is entitled:'' "The leadership styles of Helen Clark and Don Brash." :''Helen Clark is profiled in a chapter entitled:'' " Helen Clark: first elected woman prime minister."

External links

Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator

Brief biography on the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage's "History online" website

Political offices

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Category:1950 births Category:Administrators of the United Nations Development Programme Category:Female heads of government Category:Living people Category:Members of the Cabinet of New Zealand Category:Members of the Order of New Zealand Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:Ministers of Housing (New Zealand) Category:New Zealand agnostics Category:New Zealand feminists Category:New Zealand Labour Party MPs Category:New Zealand people of Irish descent Category:New Zealand Labour Party leaders Category:New Zealand women in politics Category:People from Hamilton, New Zealand Category:Prime Ministers of New Zealand Category:University of Auckland alumni Category:Leaders of the Opposition (New Zealand)

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