The curse of Kevin Rudd

Apparently the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, swears a bit. A lot, actually:

It was revealed yesterday that at a meeting between factional bosses in Mr Rudd’s office, the Prime Minister launched an expletive-laden tirade over MP allowances.

Sources say that Mr Rudd told the MPs: “I don’t care what you f...ers think!”

He then singled out Senator David Feeney by telling him “you can get f...ed” and “don’t you f...ing understand?

This has caused controversy among Australians, who aren’t used to this sort of talk. But deputy PM Julia Gillard couldn’t see what the fuss was about:

“Look, I think as adults in the Labor Party from time to time we might say the occasional robust word,” she said.

“I am known to do that as much as anybody else.”

This revelation doesn’t seem shocking at all to me. Gillard has red hair and so must be a hot-headed sort. One would expect her to swear.

Rudd, however, looks like a dentist, and whoever heard a dentist drop the F-bomb?

Incidentally, Joe Hildebrand has a copy of the speech Rudd is due to give in Copenhagen at the conference on climate change. If genuine – it’s hard to tell – it will startle his audience. And the translators.