Perhaps the most profane opening paragraph in the history of Australian journalism can be found in one of Black Inc.’s avowedly highbrow Quarterly Essays. “Those Chinese fuckers are trying to rat-fuck us,” Kevin Rudd is quoted as saying, in David Marr’s June 2010 edition of the essay series. Profane, yes, but on point.
It was not just that a prime minister had sworn but that it was this particular PM. Marr in QE38 Power Trip: The political journey of Kevin Rudd was profiling Rudd soon after he had failed to persuade the Chinese (and others) to a binding agreement on climate change at the Copenhagen summit in late 2009, which marked the beginning of the end for his prime ministership.
