Rudd should stop acclaim game

Michael Costa | October 10, 2008 LISTENING to Kevin Rudd at Council of Australian Governments meetings as he tried to connect the global economic situation to the more mundane items on the national reform agenda was often excruciating. Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of economics would have quickly concluded, as I did, that the Prime Minister didn't have a good understanding of these issues. The truth is that ministers don't need to be experts in every detail of every area of government or policy, which is why they have advisers and professional bureaucrats to assist with the task and why there are so many of them. In an ideal world the minister's role is to critically assess information provided by a variety of advisers and sources, provide a reasoned position (often a compromise), and then tell the public about it.... [read full story]