Kevin Rudd Australia's 26th Prime Minister

Kevin Michael Rudd was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of Australia on December 3, 2007.

He was born in the country town of Nambour in Queensland in 1957, the son of a share farmer and a nurse. He was educated at the Eumundi Primary School, Marist College Ashgrove and Nambour State High School, where he was Dux of the school, an honor given to the top student. He joined the Australian Labor Party at the age of 15 in 1972.

Prior to entering Parliament in 1998, Rudd worked as a diplomat, as a senior official in the Queensland Government, and as a consultant helping Australian firms establish and build their business links on the Chinese mainland and in Taiwan.

The future prime minister earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Asian studies with honors in 1981 from the Australian National University in Canberra. After graduation he was appointed to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs as a cadet diplomat. He served in the Australian embassy in Stockholm and later in the embassy in Beijing as first secretary. In 1988, Rudd was promoted to the rank of counselor and later to the senior executive service.

In 1988 Rudd returned to Queensland to work as chief of staff to Wayne Goss, the Queensland opposition leader who made history the following year leading the Queensland Labor Party back to government in its first election win since 1956.

Rudd served in the Goss government first as chief of staff to the premier and later driving the government's reform program as director general of the cabinet office, the central policy agency of the Queensland government.

During this period Rudd, a Mandarin speaker, was also appointed by Prime Minister Keating and the state premiers to chair an inter-government committee to develop a national Asian language and studies strategy for Australian schools.

Rudd contested the federal seat of Griffith for the Australian Labor Party in 1996. The Keating labor government was defeated in the 1996 election and Rudd's bid to win a seat in parliament was unsuccessful. Between 1996 and 1998 he then worked in business, primarily as the senior China consultant for KPMG Australia. His role focused on opening up trade and business opportunities for Australian corporations in China.

In 1998 Rudd again contested the seat of Griffith and was elected to the Parliament of Australia. He was immediately elected chairman of the parliamentary committee on national security and trade and served on a variety of parliamentary committees and taskforces. Following the November 2001 election, he was appointed shadow minister for foreign affairs, subsequently adding responsibilities for international security in 2003 and trade in 2005.

On December 4, 2006 Rudd was elected as the 19th leader of the Australian Labor Party.

Rudd has written extensively on Chinese politics, Chinese foreign policy, Australia-Asia relations and globalization.

He was married to his wife Thrse in 1981. They have three children - Jessica, married to Albert Tse - Nicholas and Marcus.

(China Daily 04/09/2008 page18)