Aussie scribe opens kimono on crazy Kevin Rudd speechwriting process

In a new memoir partly about his time as speechwriter to former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, James Button reveals Rudd’s idiosycratic speech-creation process. An exchange with interviewer Mark Colvin, from Australia’s ABC:

COLVIN: And there was an occasion, or maybe more than one occasion, when [Rudd] had four people writing one script for him, one speech for him, and then he sort of tears little bits out of each of them. Was that happening?

BUTTON: That’s right. It was a strange way to write a speech. Speeches need to be written from start to finish with the same mind on them. You can’t just slice and dice them and then put them together.

The memoir is called Speechless—A Year In My Father’s Business.