Kevin Rudd Quotes

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Kevin Rudd

Profession : Politician

Birth : September 21, 1957

Australia is a nation of compassion. Courage and compassion. And the third of these great values: resilience.

Kevin Rudd

Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great sadness that I announce that I will resign as Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am sad because I love this job. I'm totally dedicated to the work that we are doing in Australia's name around the world, and I believe that we have achieved many good results for Australia, and I'm proud of them.

Kevin Rudd

As nations we should also commit afresh to righting past wrongs. In Australia we began this recently with the first Australians - the oldest continuing culture in human history. On behalf of the Australian Parliament, this year I offered an apology to indigenous Australians for the wrongs they had suffered in the past.

Kevin Rudd

We are moving toward recognition of the first Australians in the Australian constitution.

Kevin Rudd

If Australia wants an effective United Nations, we have to be comprehensively, not marginally, engaged.

Kevin Rudd

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

Kevin Rudd

Something my mum taught me years and years and years ago, is life's just too short to carry around a great bucket-load of anger and resentment and bitterness and hatreds and all that sort of stuff.

Kevin Rudd

Australians are a passionate lot. We are also a very practical lot.

Kevin Rudd

2009 was a tough year, but Australia rose to the challenge of the global financial crisis. It shows what can be done when we all join together and work together, governments of all persuasions state, territory and local; businesses large and small; unions and local communities right across the nation.

Kevin Rudd

I've been around long enough to not take seriously statements like I am about to be crushed. I'm about how do we seek re-election of the Australian government, how we prevent Tony Abbott from being elected. The bottom line is that it should be all hands to the pump rather than saying other, frankly negative and internally divisive things.

Kevin Rudd

I conclude where I began, I was elected by the people of Australia to do a job. I was not elected by the factional leaders of Australia, of the Australian Labor Party to do a job - though they may be seeking to do a job on me, that's a separate matter. The challenge therefore is to honour the mandate given to me by the Australian people.

Kevin Rudd

There is a deep affection in Australia for the Queen. And I mean the Queen's been the Queen ever since I was born. I mean she is part of the firmament of Australia's sort of national life; there's a deep respect for her role.

Kevin Rudd

The Australian Government's decision to take on the dominant funding role for the entire public hospital system is designed to: end the blame game; eliminate waste; and to shoulder the funding burden of the rapidly rising health costs of the future.

Kevin Rudd

There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future.

Kevin Rudd

The Australia to 2050 report highlights something that is well understood by South Australians, that infrastructure plays a key role in long-term economic expansion.

Kevin Rudd

I deeply believe that if the Australian Labor Party, a party of which I have been a proud member for more than 30 years, is to have the best future for our nation, then it must change fundamentally its culture and to end the power of faceless men. Australia must be governed by the people, not by the factions.

Kevin Rudd

To be a member of the Labor Party is to be an optimist - optimistic about the future of Australia, optimistic about the ability of government to make a difference.

Kevin Rudd

The Apology opened the opportunity for a new relationship based on mutual respect and mutual responsibility between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. Because without mutual respect and mutual responsibility, the truth is we can achieve very little.

Kevin Rudd

What we have seen in financial markets should bring home to us all that the central organising principle of this 21st century is interdependence. For the century just past, interdependence may have been one option among many. For the century that is to come, there is no longer an alternative.

Kevin Rudd

There are many who criticise the United Nations. And those of us who know this institution well know that it is not immune from criticism. But those who argue against the United Nations advance no credible argument as to what should replace it. Whatever its imperfections, the United Nations represents a necessary democracy of states.

Kevin Rudd