Rudd gets cosy with 'dirty' Kiwis

24 Sep 2009, 7:33 am   -   Source: AAP
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Kevin Rudd had to share bathroom facilities in New York. (AAP)

Kevin Rudd had to share bathroom facilities in New York. (AAP)

Kevin Rudd got more than he bargained for when he woke this morning in New York to find a queue of unwashed Kiwis waiting to use his bathroom.

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Kevin Rudd got more than he bargained for when he woke this morning in New York to find a queue of unwashed Kiwis waiting to use his bathroom.

In the true spirit of trans-Tasman cooperation the Australian prime minister extended a cousinly hand to the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key in his hour of need.

Mr Rudd and his wife Therese Rein are staying at the residence of the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations near the UN building on the east side of Manhattan and were close at hand when the water was cut off at the hotel next door.

Dozens of people, including the New Zealand and other foreign delegations, along with members of the Australian diplomatic party and Mr Rudd's staff were left without any water for several hours, as they woke up on Wednesday morning (NY time) to get ready for another day at the UN.

Mr Rudd joked that as the US is absorbed with its own policy debate on health reform he had had his own experience of "socialised hygiene".

"I woke up this morning at the appropriate hour before some further breakfast organised for me by staff and then, only to encounter a queue, a line of people outside my bathroom, led by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Foreign Minister of NZ and most of our diplomatic staff," Mr Rudd told a lunch in New York on Wednesday (NY time).

"So, if Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg is here, I would say this is an extreme way to treat our Kiwi cousins," Mr Rudd said.

"And it's not a way, as Dale Carnegie would say, to win friends and influence people."

Earlier, at the start of his speech to the Foreign Policy Association at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, Mr Rudd joked about public reaction if he were photographed riding a horse.

He compared the likely reaction to the ridicule which followed publication of pictures of former US Democrat presidential candidate Michael Dukakis driving a tank during the 1988 US election campaign.

"I'm sure Michael could drive a tank, I can ride a horse but it is not for public display," Mr Rudd said.

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