What is Rudd's real position on economic reform?

Prime Minister Rudd depicted sinful private markets wracked by instabilities with ruinous effects on employment, which could only be redeemed by the corrective policy actions performed by benevolent and omnipresent politicians and bureaucrats.

The debate about the economic effects of the Rudd spending measures during the GFC will undoubtedly remain the subject of academic and popular debates, but there is no question that, by early 2009, Rudd the fiscal conservative and market friend was well and truly dispatched, in office, by Rudd the fiscal radical and capitalist nemesis.

A range of issues, not least Rudd's autocratic style of organisation perhaps crafted during his appointment as head of the Queensland government's Cabinet Office in his early thirties, engendered his June 2010 downfall at the hands of Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan and Bill Shorten.

During his time in leadership purgatory, Rudd made minimal contributions to the Australian economic policy debates, save for the occasional speech defending the supposed mass employment-retention powers of his $80 billion spending spree in the half-year to May 2009.

In his first, and perhaps only, parliamentary question time as a returned Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd largely limited his economic commentary to international comparisons of macroeconomic and economic policy statistics, although he also appropriately expressed regret about the deaths caused by the grossly mismanaged home insulation program.

There can be little doubt that an answer to the question as to whether Kevin Rudd has learned from the economic policy errors, conducted under his initial watch as Prime Minister, will be revealed in the coming days and weeks, as Rudd unveils his claims for the current government to extend its six years of existence.

Indeed, the Australian public will need the answer, as it assesses who will be politically best placed to reverse the policy-induced damage to the Australian economy, including massive budget deficits and public debts, and rising labour and energy costs, of recent years.