Mark Kenny | Kevin Rudd, Jacinda Ardern and the question of leadership

With Kevin Rudd and Jacinda Ardern in the capital midweek, their parallels were compelling.

At home and abroad, each now evokes a kind of extra-parliamentary aura - something bordering on eminence.

Rudd gave an adroit speech to a digital sector lunch on Wednesday that had some in Old Parliament House's Member's Dining Room asking why he had been dumped.

How could a man of such intellect be bundled from office in his first term? It is an even better question now than it was in 2010.

Why? Because a decade after Rudd 2.0 lost the 2013 election to Tony Abbott, "actually I came second" he now quips cheerily, new conclusions about his government are plausible.

Considering what followed - as a direct consequence of his midnight ouster - the tabloid fuming over Rudd's youthful office, his chaotic time management, and his folksy affectations, was simply overblown.

More defining was Labor's performance through the GFC which was as close to flawless as emergency policy comes. For all of its imprecision, it worked. People kept their jobs and recession was averted. Averted because that very risk was managed on the upside. Rudd figured repairing a blown budget involved way less human suffering than resuscitating an economy blown apart.

His misfortune during all this tumult was to be compared with his predecessor, the reliably unexciting John Howard and his comforting years of resources-boom clover.

Now though, Rudd can be measured against his successors - Abbott, for example, whose unelected chief-of-staff had greater influence than his treasurer.

Throw in wacky knighthoods, the denial of global heating, and Bronwyn Bishop as speaker. Recall Morrison's sports rorts, his bushfire indigence, his vaccine tardiness, his contempt for a European ally, his toadying to Trump, and his robodebt inhumanity. With hindsight we learned that while Abbott had secretly delegated half of his prime ministership to a staffer, Morrison had secretly usurped half of his cabinet.

The member for Cook may be cooked but Rudd's reprise in Australia's most senior diplomatic posting has only underscored his qualitative substance.

His unscripted TechCouncil speech was literate and authoritative as he told attendees that nations which don't actively construct their technological capacities become subordinate to them. But it was also surprisingly wry and self-deprecating, prompting frequent laughs.

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I remarked on this in a brief chat afterwards, to which he responded that he had not changed but media had made it impossible for politicians to be themselves. It was a fair point even if Rudd had been among the most assiduous of media courtiers - paying regular fealty as PM to the corrosively cynical alpha-males of management.

Being herself was Ardern's modus operandi - her real strength. She had been a media darling also but unlike Rudd, the former New Zealand PM left the summit on her own terms. She was in Canberra to attend "Mana Wahine - Celebrating the spirit, leadership and excellence of women", but also to mark the imminent departure of New Zealand's High Commissioner to Australia, Dame Annette King - her beloved mentor.

Ardern's charisma was almost that of a rock-star, yet her comportment was entirely more humble. She spoke with a disarming personal honesty, admitting she had always considered herself a backroom person rather than a "front-of-house" MP. Indeed, she told a packed and utterly captivated Llewellyn Hall at ANU, she had initially doubted her suitability for parliamentary life, and even wondered if she possessed the necessary intellect. Further, she struggled with her confidence even as PM.

Such grounding and public vulnerability is unthinkable from a male leader - more's the pity. Even our past PMs are obsessed with justifying their decisions, explaining their past brilliance. None of them got anything wrong apparently.

Where Rudd joked acerbically that he had been vilified for describing climate change as the great moral challenge of our age, Ardern spoke affectionately of missing her Labour caucus, "they were my family and I loved them".

Clearly, their experiences in politics differed. Rudd clawed and jawboned his way to the top leaving casualties along the way. His defenestration was worse. Ardern's arrival and departure were comparatively frictionless.

But for her, it could not have happened any other way. She had already decided that if advancement called for bastardry, she would forgo it. She would do politics differently, or fail trying.

Did Rudd, with his towering intelligence and volcanic ambition, ever weigh such costs?

His removal from office at the hands of a toxic caucus was disastrous - an explosion of envy, bitterness, and wholly unjustified hubris. It was a blight on Australian politics that would reverberate through both major parties for the next decade.

Where his rise and fall befits tragedy, Ardern's proclaims higher virtues. Mere coincidence? Perhaps, but those close to her say she frequently begins conversations with questions. She's a listener. Having known and interviewed 10 past or serving PMs, I couldn't say that of any of them. Well, perhaps Gillard.

Ardern's humanity - instinctive amid the Christchurch massacre - came from her deeper belief that being a good person was the basis of ethical leadership.

Perhaps the deepest tragedy isn't that some leaders are forced to go prematurely but that the vulgarities of politics mean some of the very best never even arrive.