Early indications are (and we have to remember the observation* which Chou En-lai^ made about the French Revolution) that Kevin Rudd brings some refreshing traits to the federal ALP leadership:

(i)  as a “brainiac”, he is more of a scholar than an intellectual, if that latter term continues to have its recent connotation of being ideologically bent one way or t’other;

(ii)  as an ALP MP, he seems to realise that trade union officials ought not be the masters of elected politicians (any more than Chambers of Industry & Commerce of Coalition MPs);

(iii) as one who’s successfully (as far as we can tell#) run a large government institution in Qld, he might have experience far deeper than what’s become drearily commonplace for ALP MPs: (a) “adviser” (Your taxes at work !!) to an MP, (b) a capo for a factional warlord, (c) a spin doctor, or, most drearily, (d) all three;

(iv)  as one with competence at least, and fluency at best, in a foreign language~, he brings to the top job the experience of having studied a real hard subject to a very high level, as distinct from the proliferation of junk-degrees which involve lots of units with the tell-tale term “Studies” in their titles. When was the last time a possible PM had this sort of academic achievement ?  Perhaps Menzies and Whitlam, given their eras, had “a little Latin and less Greek” (and Mrs Gorton had learned Indonesian). His early remarks about the post-modernist infection teaching and learning suffer from are encouraging;

* “It’s too early to tell”  -  said to be his answer to a question about the significance of the events of 1789-99;

^ very mild apology for old-style Wade-Giles spelling -  go google the new one for yourself;

~ and one which for speakers of Indo-European languages is about as far away on the similarity/dissimilarity spectrum as can be;

# should be a compulsory phrase when reporting or repeating anything seen, heard or read in the media.