Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has recalled some of the more ridiculous moments during last year's federal election campaign as he launched a new book on Labor's journey to victory.
Introducing the book, Inside Kevin 07, Mr Rudd recounted in Sydney how a plane carrying 25 journalists from Mackay in Queensland to Perth was forced to make a pit stop in Alice Springs when the toilet broke down.
And at a Brisbane shopping centre, an elderly lady in a wheelchair urged him to touch her breast where her pet marsupial was sitting.
"A terrified sugar glider felt as if it had been somehow trapped in a ravine somewhere in the Himalayas," Mr Rudd told the audience assembled for the launch.
Inside Kevin 07, written by journalist Christine Jackman, recounts how a rookie team achieved Labor's third largest swing just 11 months after Mr Rudd took over as leader.
Mr Rudd said he believed his win was down to Australia's concerns over the volatile financial climate, lack of productivity hidden by the resources boom, poor broadband technology, the climate change crisis and worries we were "facing a much more complex region in a much more complex world than ever before".
But he added that eight months into his leadership, with the crises in the financial markets, and the alarming affects of climate change and nuclear proliferation, the problems facing Australia were more alarming than ever.
"The global storm clouds gathering are even darker ... reinforcing the urgency for a long-term responsible reform agenda to see Australia through," he said.
