Video: Kevin Rudd gets emotional as he quits politics Choking back tears, Kevin Rudd told fellow MPs, "I bear no-one in this place amy malice. Life is far too short for that. It is time, however, for the baton unequivocally to be passed to others. Mr Rudd, who has served in Parliament since 1998, led Australia as prime minister between 2007 and 2010, and then again earlier this year until his Australian Labour Party lost the September 7 general election to the Liberal-National coalition of current Prime Minister Tony Abbott. "To think that son of a dairy farmer, whose family didn't really have much money, could secure a place at university through the Whitlam reforms, and upon graduation become a diplomat, and then serve as Chief of Staff to a premier, become elected to the Parliament to represent the great Australian Labour Party, and ultimately to be elected as Leader of the Party and then as Prime Minister, says everything about how extraordinary this country is," Mr Rudd said in his final address to Parliament.