Rudd: I’m ready for my close-up, Mr Assange.

CANBERRA, Mon – Kevin Rudd remains hopeful that Wikileaks won’t overlook him.

Speaking to a smaller media contingent than he was accustomed to in his days as PM, Australia’s Foreign Minister announced that he had created a task force inside his department. ‘Team Ruddleak,’ he said, ‘has one goal, and one goal only: to find, among the many thousands of cables and other documents just released, every mention of my name.’

The former leader tried to inject a confident note. But his performance was strongly reminiscent of his last major press conference in June, when he announced that he had been replaced in the top position by his deputy. Tears seemed to be hovering just out of sight. There was a strong sense in the room that  Kevin Rudd was steeling himself for another betrayal.

He described as ‘utterly inconceivable’ the possibility that his name would not appear anywhere in the leaked documents. ‘Ease up, sport,’ he replied. ‘I was an outstanding Prime Minister. Misunderstood and underappreciated, too. I put Australia on the world stage at Copenhagen.’ There was visible surprise that the former PM would nominate the climate change fiasco as a high point of his term but Rudd didn’t back down. ‘Copenhagen got people everywhere talking about Australia. Talking about me. And you know what Oscar Wilde said, don’t you? The only thing worse than being talked about…’

Rudd’s jovial manner wavered however as he detailed the task faced by Team Ruddleak. ‘Page by page, paragraph by paragraph – line by line. They’ll be working Christmas Day if that’s what it takes. I’ve talked to Therese and the kids. They’ve agreed to play their part: they’ll be putting in some heavy hours over the holidays. Rather than head for the beach they’ll be holding documents up to the light and trying to read the blacked-out sections.’ The mention of family seemed to ignite with force the memory of that departure speech. ‘The truth is in there,’ Rudd insisted. ‘I was a leader worthy of international attention; diplomats and ministers would have spoken of me every day to their superiors. Rest assured that every appearance I make in those leaked documents will be found and brought into the light of day. They can’t ignore me. They simply cannot ignore me…’

The Foreign Minister was led away at that point and one of his staff took the final questions. Outlining the team’s search methods he gave some insight into what they expected to find.  ‘In a situation like this you have to look beyond the obvious. “Kevin Rudd” and “Australia” are top of the list of course, but we have to think more adventurously too. We’re including ‘four-eyed poncy knowall’ in our search terms for example. ‘Arrogant twat’ is getting a run as well – we expect to have good success with that. And if worst comes to worst we’ll go for the  extreme possibilities. “Useless and annoying kangaroo fucker” might turn up a few real surprises.”

Neither Wikileaks nor the White House were available for comment.