We all agree Mr Rudd has fantastic support at the polls. So why...

We all agree Mr Rudd has fantastic support at the polls. So why so many queries on his performance? Bolta is no fool, perhaps the best judge going around.
==========================================================
Watching Kevin Rudd do very little
Andrew Bolt

August 15, 2008 12:00am
YOU love the man, it seems. Newspoll this week confirmed it, giving Kevin Rudd a solid approval rating of 58 per cent.

No one better to run the country, you say. So I look at this typical week in Rudd's utterly vacuous rule as Prime Minister and am stunned.

I mean, how in God's name does this pretender - this Great Watcher - get away with it? What am I missing?

See, if one week could perfectly demonstrate the emptiness of Kevin Rudd, the astonishing Being There nothingness of this "I like to watch" Prime Minister, this week was it.

It ended with FuelWatch, of course, a debacle matched only by his GroceryWatch. But it started, just as typically, with StarWatch.

Let me quote the papers: "Mr Rudd revealed in an interview . . . in Beijing that he was sitting just two rows behind (US President George W.) Mr Bush when an animated discussion between he and (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Mr Putin broke out over Russia's advance into South Ossetia, a breakaway region in neighbouring Georgia.

" 'The President and Mr Putin were in animated conversation two seats in front of us and I imagine they had a few things on their agenda,' Mr Rudd said."

Pardon? Rudd is now our celebrity reporter, sitting in the VIP stands and tattling about the gossip he excitedly overhears between world leaders?

Would John Howard have rushed out to blab on what he'd seen while snooping? Would Bob Hawke?

Memo to Bush: the next time you have something to discuss with another world leader, do so out of the sight and hearing of the geek with the glasses who keeps saluting you.

And we thought Rudd behaved like a starstruck tragic only around Cate Blanchett. And Nicole Kidman. And Hugh Jackman. And Jackie Chan. And Russell Crowe.

Next came WorldWatch, as Rudd fluffed around Asia on his fifth - sixth? - overseas trip in just nine months, posing for happy snaps.

Like most of the others, this latest look-see had no serious purpose. Other than to have Rudd strut as an international statesman, that is.

Doubt me? Then check yourself how Rudd's own website tried to trumpet his piccolo deeds.

In South Korea on Wednesday, the best Rudd could boast about was that he'd formally agreed merely to start talking to the Koreans about a free trade deal. Oh, and he signed a "memorandum of understanding" to "further strengthen education ties". (But how? When?)

In Singapore the next day he signed another of these no-promises memorandums, this time to "underline the strength . . . of the existing security policy co-operation".

When asked at a press conference to explain what would actually change as a result of his signature, Rudd failed to give a single detail. Isn't it enough that he's zipping around signing stuff?

In Singapore, Rudd also tripped over the carcass of AsiaWatch - his airy plan for a new Asia Pacific Community.

So doomed was AsiaWatch from the minute Rudd dreamed it up, failing to attract support from a single Asian leader, that Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, didn't refer to it once in his speech at Tuesday's official lunch in Rudd's honour. He's too kind to mention the dead.

Add AsiaWatch to Rudd's other grand foreign plans going nowhere or scrapped - such as WhaleWatch, the get-tough anti-whaling plan that involves Rudd sending ships to watch Japan kill whales, but won't now include Rudd actually taking Japan to the International Court.

Oh, and let's not forget NukeWatch, either - Rudd's new international nuclear disarmament group, which hasn't met and can never succeed.

And still Rudd's week-long show about nothing hadn't finished.

Next was StateWatch, as the Prime Minister finally flew back to the country he's actually paid to govern and joined West Australian Premier Alan Carpenter's election campaign.

Why Rudd bothered to turn up must have mystified Carpenter, given he brought nothing with him but yet more words. And those eager eyes.

That became painfully obvious during the main picture opportunity, when Rudd took a ride on a train line on Wednesday to promote Carpenter's plans for an extension - only to admit he hadn't funded it and couldn't promise to, either.

So why was he there?

"I'm bringing Kevin here for a reason - I want to show the Prime Minister what we are doing . . ." Carpenter explained stoutly. And he sure picked the right man to just come watch.

Oh, how Rudd likes to watch. Take FuelWatch, which rounded off Rudd's week by being mercifully euthanised by two senators whose votes Rudd needed to get it through Parliament.

FuelWatch was Rudd's big plan to drive down petrol prices. The problem with it, as independent Nick Xenophon and Family First's Steve Fielding now confirm, was that it was just as likely to make petrol dearer and drive independent retailers broke.

Which, surprise, was what motoring organisations and four federal government departments, including his own, had tried to warn Rudd from the start. But what was FuelWatch ever meant to achieve, other than the impression of Rudd doing, rather than just talking? And watching?

Ah, you'll think I'm too hard on your man. Too unforgiving of a leader you really, really trust.

So, desperate to seem fair, I look for something, anything, of substance Rudd has done, and not simply discussed. Or watched.

But what do I see? Not just FuelWatch, WhaleWatch, StarWatch, WorldWatch, AsiaWatch, NukeWatch and StateWatch, but even more of the just-watching sorry sort.

There's GroceryWatch, a stunningly useless $13 million website that was meant to make Rudd seem like he was tackling high grocery prices, but which Consumer Affairs Minister Chris Bowen now admits "is not designed to bring prices down". And won't.

There's WaterWatch, the $50 million scheme by buy back water licences that bought instead so much airspace in empty dams that it will this year return to the Murray River the equivalent of just 10 swimming pools.

There's CarbonWatch, which will have Rudd spending billions to curb emissions without making a flicker of difference to a global warming that actually halted a decade ago.

Or how about IdeasWatch - the Ideas Summit of 1000 "best and brightest" that was such a celebrity circus that the only new idea Rudd could identify was a bionic eye. Which, in fact, had already been invented.

And, watch, there's more.

There's CarWatch - Rudd's $500 million Green Car Innovation Fund, which Productivity Commission boss Gary Bank said last week "would be unlikely to yield significant innovation or greenhouse benefits" if its grants were all like the $35 million Rudd gave to Toyota - cash the car giant said it hadn't expected and didn't need.

And InflationWatch, which had Rudd promising to kill inflation with a "tough-as-all-hell" Budget that actually increased spending?

And OilWatch, which had Rudd vow to "apply the blowtorch" to oil-producing countries, but when given the chance to confront them . . . oh, I give up.

You say you love this kind of leadership. You thrill to Rudd's talk.

So what if his posturing comes to nothing. It's just good to watch, right?