Kevin Rudd has 'taken on board' the UN report which criticises the asylum-seeker processing centre in PNG.
ABOUT 625 Australian soldiers did not survive the brutal fighting against crack Japanese troops along the 100km long Track during WW2.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill in Port Moresby yesterday Mr Rudd acknowledged that more than 3000 Australians a year followed in the footsteps of the 30,000 diggers who fought a pitched campaign along the Track between July and November 1942 under appalling conditions.
Kevin Rudd describes himself as a Kokoda 'survivor'
About 1600 were wounded and another 4000 fell victim to tropical diseases especially malaria.
Mr Rudd famously walked the Track in 2006 with Liberal heavyweight Joe Hockey as part of a TV stunt.
Despite saying yesterday that he was a friend of PNG he did not visit the country once when he was foreign minister.
"I was one of them way back then and I am a survivor of the Kokoda Track," Mr Rudd blurted at his Moresby press conference, conducted with a portrait of himself in the background.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (L) speaks alongside Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister Peter O'Neill. AFP PHOTO / NESS KERTON Source: AFP
Bede Tongs, 93, from Queanbeyan in NSW was awarded the Military Medal for single-handedly taking out a Japanese machine gun post at Templeton's Crossing in September 1942.
He lost 53 mates on the Track and he urged Mr Rudd to stay away from throwaway lines.
"Good on him, he is a survivor, but is he a contributor?'' Mr Tongs said.
"That wasn't the right thing for him to say, but politicians always want to say something to bring prominence upon themselves.
"It was a stupid thing to say, he wasn't there. Instead of saying stupid things he should spend more money on health and education for our friends in PNG.''
Kokoda Track Veteran Bede Tongs. Source: News Limited
Mr Tongs said 560 men from the 3rd Battalion went up the track in September 1942 and just 110 were still standing at Gona on December 4.
Mr Hockey upset Mr Rudd's wife Therese Rein when he said he should have drowned the comeback PM instead of rescuing him from rapids.
He said he had seen all versions of Kevin - "Kokoda Kevin, and I apologise to the Australian people, I should have drowned him when I had a chance in the mountains.''
Ms Rein said she had walked the Track and it was about mateship and courage and endurance.
"That doesn't seem to hang together very well with those comments,'' Ms Rein said.
Given that most of the 625 Australians who died along the Track are buried at the Bomana War Cemetery on the outskirts of Port Moresby, and Mr Rudd didn't pay his respects during his lightning PNG visit, the true Kokoda "survivors'' are not happy.
Len Griffiths with fellow Kokoda veteran Dickson Hango. Source: News Limited
Len Griffiths of Canberra was an infantry Sergeant with the 3rd Militia Battalion when he stood to attention in the village of Kokoda in November 1942 as his mate Merv Shea from Yass raised the Australian flag.
Mr Griffiths, 91, and his mates had routed the Japs after weeks of bloody fighting and were chasing them towards the sea at Buna-Gona.
When told that Mr Rudd had survived Kokoda he said, "He was lucky wasn't he.''
Mr Griffiths described the PM's comment as "disrespectful'' and "a bit dicey''.
"It sounds a bit ordinary to me. Typical Rudd bravado I reckon.''
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