Kevin Rudd

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Rudd joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1981 as a graduate trainee. His first posting was as Third Secretary at the Australian Embassy in Stockholm from November 1981 to December 1983 where he organised an Australian film festival, represented Australia at the Stockholm Conference on Acidification of the Environment, and reported on Soviet gas pipelines and European energy security. In 1984, Rudd was appointed Second Secretary at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, and promoted to First Secretary in 1985, where he was responsible for analysing Politburo politics, economic reform, arms control and human rights under Ross Garnaut, David Irvine and Geoff Raby. He returned to Canberra in 1987 and was assigned to the Policy Planning Branch, then the Staffing Policy Section, and was selected to serve as the Office of National Assessments Liaison Officer at the Australian High Commission in London commencing in 1989 but declined.

Post-political career (2013–present)

On 13 November 2013, Rudd announced that he would soon resign from Parliament. In his valedictory speech to the House of Representatives, Rudd expressed his attachment to his community but said he wanted to dedicate more time to his family and minimise disruption to House proceedings. Rudd submitted his resignation in writing to the Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, on 22 November 2013, formally ending his parliamentary career. Terri Butler was selected to run for the Labor Party at the resulting by-election in the electorate of Griffith to be held on 8 February 2014. Rudd offered Butler his support and advice, and campaigned with her in a low-key appearance on 11 January 2014. Butler ultimately succeeded Rudd in the seat.

Since leaving the Australian Parliament, Rudd has served in senior roles for a range of international organisations and educational institutions.

In early 2014, Rudd left Australia to work in the United States, where he was appointed a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he completed a major research effort on the future of US-China relations. Through 2014 Rudd joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies as a distinguished statesman, and was appointed a distinguished fellow at both the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago, Illinois and Chatham House, London.

In September of that year, he was appointed Chair of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism at the International Peace Institute in Vienna, Austria, and in October became the first President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York City.

On 5 November 2015, Rudd was appointed to chair Sanitation and Water For All, a global partnership to achieve universal access to drinking water and adequate sanitation. He has also actively contributed to the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on China. Rudd is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council. On 21 October 2016, he was awarded an honorary professorship at Peking University.

In 2016, Rudd asked the Government of Australia (then a government of the Liberal/National Coalition) to nominate him for Secretary-General of the United Nations. At its meeting on 28 July, the Cabinet was divided on his suitability for the role and, on that basis, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull decided to decline the request; since nomination by the Australian government was considered a necessary prerequisite for candidacy, Turnbull's decision essentially ended Rudd's campaign; Rudd later confirmed as much. However, there remains dispute over what if any earlier assurances Turnbull may have given to Rudd and about what happened in the Cabinet meeting.

Rudd is also a member of the Global Leadership Foundation, a non-profit organisation comprising a network of former heads of state or government.

In late 2022, there were calls for Rudd to be appointed as the next Australian Ambassador to the United States, when the term of the current ambassador expires in February 2023.

In October 2017, Rudd launched the first volume of his autobiography, entitled Not for the Faint-hearted: A Personal Reflection on Life, Politics and Purpose, which chronicles his life until becoming prime minister in 2007.

On 10 October 2020, Rudd launched a petition for a royal commission into what he termed the "Murdoch media monopoly" and its impact on Australian democracy. The public demand to sign the petition following Rudd's Twitter announcement caused the Australian Parliament House's ePetitions site to experience technical difficulties. On 25 October 2020, Rudd was joined by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull who gave him his support, tweeting that he too had signed the petition. With more than 500,000 signatures, the petition became the most signed parliamentary e-petition in Australia and the third most signed parliamentary petition ever. The petition was tabled in the House of Representatives by Labor MP Andrew Leigh on 9 November 2020. Peta Credlin, a Sky News commentator gave an on air apology in February 2021 to Rudd as part of a confidential legal settlement regarding defamation over comments she made in 2020 about him and his petition.

In 2017, Rudd began studying for a doctorate on Xi Jinping at Jesus College, Oxford. In 2022, Rudd was conferred with a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Oxford. In his thesis, Rudd argues that Xi has adopted a more Marxist political and economic approach to government and that will have negative consequences for economic growth and China as a whole.

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