KEVIN RUDD is playing an old but reliable political gambit - to define yourself, pick a fight.
And his truculent declaration that he wants some "argy bargy" on "hard principles" of school standards is a good fight to pick.
The chief complaint about the Rudd Government in recent months is that it was too wishy-washy, too insubstantial, trying too hard to please everyone.
Rudd commissioned reviews to avoid hard decisions. Or, as Tony Abbott put it, Rudd "hit the ground reviewing". He watched problems - FuelWatch and GroceryWatch - rather than solved them, ran the critique. He was a Prime Minister modelled on the Peter Sellers character in Being There - "I like to watch."
So now Rudd has demanded all schools provide detailed reports on their students' results and overall school performance.
He has proclaimed that Australia needs "excellent teaching", with incentives for schools to attract high-performing principals and teachers, and funds for intensive learning.
Rudd said the Government was prepared to provide money, averaging about $500,000 a school per year, to help achieve it. But he will withhold money from schools that don't co-operate.
The teaching unions will detest this agenda. And so will their proxies and protectors, the Labor state governments. This is exactly why it's a good fight.
The teaching unions represent a huddling collectivist mediocrity; Rudd will crusade in the cause of excellence and achievement.
The teaching unions represent a cosy, closed shop, repressing teacher initiative to protect the incompetent; Rudd will demand transparency and accountability.
The teaching unions are interested in an easy life for teachers and regard parents as an intrusion and students as an inconvenience; Rudd will champion the rights of parents and students.
It is a good fight for reasons of the national interest. And it is a good fight for Rudd's own political interest.
It works for the national interest because Australian educational standards, while good, are not good enough. Low-wage countries control the low-cost industries. For rich countries, national competitiveness depends on knowledge-intensive value-adding.
Australian education standards need to be cutting-edge to hone Australia's competitive edge.
Education services are Australia's third biggest export, behind only coal and iron ore. And the schools system equips all industries. Mediocrity in schools is a threat to the national future.
Today Australia enjoys a commodities boom; the future could be underwritten by an education boom.
Picking a fight with the teaching unions, and the Labor states, works in Rudd's political interests, too.
It will demonstrate he is fighting for striving Australian students and parents against union intransigence. It will show him not as a pawn of the trade unions but as a campaigner in the national interest.
And, with most state governments held in low regard for their incompetence, it casts Rudd in the role of the great reformer.
The Liberal Party complained yesterday that Rudd had stolen its schools policy. True. But this is a fight the Liberals could never win. Only a Labor government can confront the unions and the Labor states. Rudd may yet fail. But it's a fight well worth having.
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