Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is the 26th and current Prime Minister of Australia and federal leader of the centre-left Australian Labor Party (ALP). Under Rudd's leadership, the Labor Party won the 2007 federal election on 24 November against the incumbent centre-right Liberal/National coalition government led by John Howard (see Howard Government). The Rudd Ministry was sworn in by the Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, on 3 December 2007.

Rudd was born in Nambour, Queensland and grew up on a dairy farm in nearby Eumundi to Margaret DeVere and Albert Rudd. Farm life, which required the use of horses and guns, is where he developed his life-long love of horse riding and shooting clay targets. His father, a share farmer and Country Party member, died when Rudd was 11 and the family was compelled to leave the farm under hardship. Rudd joined the Australian Labor Party in 1972 at the age of 15. He boarded at Marist College Ashgrove in Brisbane and was dux of Nambour State High School in 1974.

Rudd's paternal 4th great-grandfather, Thomas Rudd arrived from London, England in 1801 where he married Mary Cable from Essex, arriving in 1804. He is of English and Irish descent.