Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's youngest son Marcus joins Labor's digital campaign team

 

KEVIN Rudd has placed both his sons in key election roles in an 'all-in-the-family' move that has ruffled feathers within Labor's campaign team. 
Youngest son Marcus, 20, has joined the ALP's digital campaign team - and has already caused a stir after suggesting the use of a video from the TV satire, The Hollowmen.

And there are signs of renewed tensions emerging within Labor's campaign machine following the June leadership coup against Julia Gillard.

A senior strategist, Nathan Lambert, has been moved into a new role to make way for NSW state secretary and Rudd loyalist Sam Dastyari, provoking a fiery attack from Mr Lambert's father via email.

The Prime Minister's older son, Nicholas, 24, has been on the ALP payroll for several weeks as a key adviser to his father.Marcus has joined the ALP's digital campaign team - which will be bolstered by the import of several members of Barack Obama's campaign squad - as a volunteer. But the youngest of the Rudd children caused bemusement when he suggested the release of a Hollowmen clip - only to be told the satirical series was loosely based on his father's first stint.

The appointments have not been met with universal acclaim. "People are pretty p****d off that both Rudd's sons are going to be there," a senior Government adviser said.

Meanwhile, John Lambert, father of Labor's assistant national secretary, has written to a federal Labor MP and lashed out at the Prime Minister's reputation for being a tough and unrelenting boss.

In an email obtained by News Corp Australia, Mr Lambert claims his son was moved after he tried to "negotiate a compromise" over the campaign budget - and he points the finger at Mr Rudd.

Mr Lambert Snr, in the email to Victorian MP Darren Cheeseman, claims he has "known for a long time that many of those who work around Kevin (Rudd) are poorly looked after by Kevin and his closest advisers - his staff turnover and arguable bullying have made the news regularly".

Mr Lambert says he was "appalled with the fact that Nathan had done an excellent job of setting things in place for the campaign including having funding allocated - but then Kevin had a 'good idea' to bring in some US citizens 'first class' to assist and his henchmen then demanded 20% of Nathan's budget".

"When Nathan tried to negotiate a compromise they set about getting rid of him - absolute bullying of the worst kind," Mr Lambert said.

Last night, Mr Lambert wrote to Mr Cheeseman and claimed his earlier email, sent on Monday,
was the result of a "big misunderstanding and I'd like to retract what I said earlier as it's just not right".

Labor sources also insist Mr Lambert has not been demoted and that he was a "respected and valued" member of the campaign team.

He will be in charge of data management while Mr Dastyari will be based in the Melbourne HQ to manage marginal seat operations.

news.com.au 1 Aug 2013

Australian politics truly a business for the family.

Unskilled and not capable of the tasks, but as long as 'father' puts him there, is all that matters.