Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, former Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition respectively, are two of the most important figures in the Australian Parliament today. Their continued presence in the Parliament is a surprise. Even more remarkable is their new prominence after both sat out the election campaign on the backbench, playing only cameo roles.
As Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Shadow Minister for Communications respectively, they have been rehabilitated and revitalised. Their past faults and misdemeanours have been forgotten and they have been charged with new responsibilities at the heart of Australia's domestic and international futures.
Rudd has been feted on the international stage and has already achieved a rise in our standing, especially in the United States, as well as favourable publicity for himself. He also has oversight of the regional resolution of the management and processing of asylum seekers. His success in this difficult task is crucial to the Government's domestic electoral fortunes as Labor must neutralise this issue.
Turnbull has not been given quite as senior a portfolio as Rudd, but his portfolio is crucial nevertheless, in terms of both good public policy and party politics. His role is central to the political strategy of the Opposition. He has been specifically chosen as Tony Abbott's wrecking ball. His job is to demolish the government's central infrastructure policy, the National Broadband Network (NBN), with two goals in mind.
The short term goal is to reduce the NBN to such tatters that the two rural Independents desert the Government for the Opposition. The longer term goal, if that does not succeed, is to make sure that by the next election the NBN is seen as a failure, a larger version of the pink bats and school halls policies.
Rudd and Turnbull have a common interest: action on climate change. This issue more than any other brought each of them down in their previous incarnations. Rudd saw climate change as the greatest moral challenge of our time but baulked at putting his Government on the line for it. Turnbull was willing to risk his Liberal leadership to achieve an ETS scheme but failed to convince his party to follow him.
Their joint venture eventually, after Turnbull's demise, failed to carry the majority of the Senate. But the issue lives on, though neither Julia Gillard nor Abbott has anywhere near the commitment that their predecessors articulated.
Now the Independents and the Greens want climate