Filmed two weeks ago, hours before Mr Rudd took security briefings on the worsening situation in Syria, the episode – hosted by Annabel Crabb – showed Mr Rudd and his daughter Jess in relaxed form, baking chocolate brownies and talking about the importance of family.

Mr Rudd revealed that ''every decision I have made about what I do in life is one that I've worked through with our family''.

''We actually mull these things over for a bit,'' he said. ''We have formal family conferences when anyone wants to do anything significant and so therefore we know what we're doing and why we're doing it and if it works out that's terrific and it doesn't work out you know that you've actually approached it with a reasonable motivations.''

And, he said, he did not believe in holding onto anger or bitterness.

''You run into too many bitter and twisted people in life, whether they are in whatever profession, who just sort of carry around their lives this sort of burden or bucket of hatred, offences, real or imagined, slights real or imagined from way back when,'' he told Crabb.

''And you sort of say hello and then you realise you're entering into a zone of 25 years worth of, you know, silent and anger and you think "bah".

Asked how he dealt with it, Mr Rudd said: ''So for me, I just stick it into what Mum used to call her 'forgettery' – boof! Remember the old computer programs it had the little rubbish bin at the top? Boof. Gonski.''