Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has taken to the stage with other graduates in Canberra to accept an honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws at his former stomping ground the ANU.
Mr Rudd was awarded for his contribution to international affairs and for his service as Australia’s 26th prime minister.
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He was presented the doctorate by former Hawke and Keating Cabinet Minister, now ANU Chancellor, Gareth Evans.
“It is indeed a frightening thing to go down on one’s knee in front of Gareth Evans,” Mr Rudd joked.
Kevin Rudd is no stranger to the ANU, attending before his diplomatic career began to complete a bachelor in Asian studies.
“I remember sitting in this hall, this very same hall, 35-years-ago when I too graduated.”
Mr Rudd praised the fellow graduates and offered them advice on the correct definition of leadership.
"[It] is not about the title that you might have now or into the future. Leadership is about the values, the ideas and the initiatives that you bring to the table," he said.
It wasn't all positive with the two-time Labor leader and former prime minister launching into an attack on modern politics and the media.
“Any discussion of national vision, let alone global vision, disappears amidst the howls of derision from our political class and large parts of the commentariat, whose first instinct is to tear down not to build up."
The academic spends most of his time living in the United States, only returning to Australia several times a year, which he believes gives him a different perspective.
“[It’s] as if we have produced such a, at times, vicious public culture well beyond the realms necessary for robust, disagreement and debate, where civility is lost and where to admit error is to admit weakness."
Mr Rudd blamed what he labelled as a culture of placing facts last and opinions first, however, acknowledged his own guilt in partaking in said failure.
He was elected as Leader of the Opposition in 2006 and became only the third Labor leader to win government from opposition since the Second World War.
Earlier he removed his official Tudor bonnet while addressing graduates – fearful of being photographed by the media – and praised his wife, Therese Rein, who was awarded her own honorary doctorate earlier on Friday.
“She delivered a spectacular address [and] with me you get the consolation prize. I’m the political handbag of this operation,” Mr Rudd said.
