I was walking down the main street of Cooma on Good Friday and saw a small gathering of people on the pavement.  I went to see what had attracted the crowd and there was Kevin Rudd,  He was casually walking up to people saying “Hi I’m Kevin”, he was dressed in a sports coat and open necked shirt and had three low key security people with him.  Many of the locals were asking hom to pose for photo’s which he was happy to do.  There was a chinese family who he was talking to in mardarin.

There were a few things that struck me about the whole thing.  He was very casual and relaxed and clearly enjoying the experience.  I never saw John Howard in the same light he always seemd a little stand offish and always in a tie.

It was nice to see the low level security and I thought how lucky we are in this country that a prime miniter can do that without the stupid motocades USA politicians had in Sydney for the economic summit.

I’ve been watch Barack Obama’s speach on racism and I wonder whether we’re starting to see a different type of leadership emerge where leaders are brave enugh to talk about the big and imprtant issues we need from leaders instead of trivial populist issues like private school funding that just gets votes.  We want these people to lead and that means listening to things we might be uncomfortable with.