Losing His Religion

CHOOSING his confessions: three years before Kevin Rudd claimed to be "inspired" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer - more than by any other man of the twentieth century - it was John Wesley he wheeled out to buttress his heroic Christian philosophy on building a more just world. He was giving the annual lecture to the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. "The world is my parish" was the Wesley precept he chose to associate with the outlook of the man for whom the Monash University Centre is named. That worldview Mr Rudd described this way: " ... if human rights were not universal, there were no human rights at all. Whether it was indigenous Australia, East Timor or Tibet, Ron Castan painted on a wide canvass because the enterprise to which he was committed did not recognise the delineations of geography or nationality."

Castan may not have recognised any such delineations but the Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister do. On Zimbabwe, Stephen Smith, for example, talks the talk. He'd like to see "the back of the terrible Mugabe regime." That's nice. But when it comes to a regime far more terrible, Mr Smith asks protesters to conduct their anti-regime activities in a way "consistent with civility and dignity." Greg Sheridan is right to argue that the Rudd government's statements on Tibet to Beijing have been "correct but not courageous."

Part of the explanation for this moral weakness is the Prime Minister's sinophilia. Added to that, there is the modern progressive's tendency to see China as somehow more noble than the Nazi tyranny opposed by his ostensible role model, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But unlike Mr Rudd vis-a-vis AustChina, the theologian never took gifts and travel grants from companies in business with the Third Reich. As Mr Rudd once argued, human rights are "universal." That means the "engage, don't boycott" line - on which his minister insists - is morally comparable to the famous Bjelke-Petersen policy. With the chutzpah for which he's renowned, Mr Rudd gave his first foreign policy speech as PM last night: "The truth is that Australia's voice has been too quiet for too long." Not much has changed. Despite noise in all the wrong places.