McCallum wrote, in part:
"The most interesting political story of the holiday break came not from the news pages, where
the election and its aftermath had finally succumbed to the demands of sport, but from the letters column of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Last week a social worker from St Johns Church in Canberra revealed that on the morning of Boxing Day the Prime Minister, unannounced and accompanied only by a security guard, had
arrived to help serve breakfast to the homeless of the national capital, of whom there are rather more than is generally supposed. Kevin Rudd talked to both workers and clients at some length,
and then announced as the most serious of his new year resolutions his intention to do something about the plight of the homeless.
A cynic commented that this would all have been more convincing if he had been engaged in similar activities before becoming Prime Minister – but he had. During the hectic campaign, after the exhausted media retired for the weekend, Rudd regularly visited homeless centres in whichever city he found himself.
As with St Johns the visits took place without any kind of publicity, and the fact that they had taken place only came out after polling day. They were acts of private charity and compassion
which some observers have clearly found surprising and disconcerting in a man who has been seen as a ruthlessly efficient and single minded politician."
To read more about this go to http://www.echo.net.au/archives/22_29/pdf/p10.pdf
Comment: Former PM Howard had neither the guts nor the common decency to do anything such as this during his 11+ years in the post. What more needs to be said, other than good riddance to bad rubbish.
