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Campaign countdown: Julia gets her groove back

Paul Colgan

by Paul Colgan

09 Aug 09:53pm

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Filed under: Election 2010, Julia Gillard, Politics, Q And A

213 comments

As these things go, Julia Gillard’s appearance on Q&A was pretty much a slam dunk. 

The PM shares a joke with Q&A host Tony Jones

She looked prime ministerial. She was poised, witty, and showed a command of a range of policy. Importantly, Gillard steered clear of excessively negative attacks on Coalition leader Tony Abbott who, when he appears on the show next week, will need to change his tone from his campaign launch themes of assassination, toxicity, waste and immaturity.

The Q&A performance showed (again) that Gillard is at her best when she’s off the leash, as she was in her press conference the day after that cabinet leak about her querying the paid parental leave scheme. The forum gave her space to outline her plans for government and she handled well some curly questions on mental health spending and her own family status. She also spoke for all Australians when she inferred that Mark Latham was a tool of immeasurable proportions.

Questioner: I’d be interested in your thoughts on a scale of 1 to 10 - one being just bearable and 10 being massively annoying - how big of a tool is Mark Latham?

Gillard: (Laughs). There are some things that can’t be measured.

Here’s how Gillard handled with the question on her family status.

Questioner: Some ... Australians think you have no family so you will not really understand their concerns. My question is how you persuade these people their worries are not necessary.

Gillard: Okay, um, thank you, and thank you for asking the question because I think it’s a question on a lot of people’s minds but sometimes people think they shouldn’t ask questions about personal circumstances but I think it’s good to talk about it. And I suppose what I would say first and foremost is there’s never going to be one Australian who can encapsulate in their own life experience the story of every other Australian. You’ve always got to be prepared to listen and learn from other people’s experiences. I’m never going to know what it’s like to be an indigenous Australian, I’m never going to know what it’s like to be someone who has a disability ... John Howard didn’t know what it was like to be a mother, and so the list goes on…

Jones: But he knew what it was like to be a father and he knew what it was like to be a husband and that’s the point I think that ...

Gillard: ... and my life’s different to that, you know and I’m not trying to walk away from that Tony, I’m just trying to make the simple point that we’re never going to have a Prime Minister that captures everybody’s life experience. I’m the first Prime Minister to know what it’s like to be a woman - I don’t think you’re going to suggest John Howard knew that.

Jones: I certainly hope not. (Laughs.)

Gillard: That would be a political story of some moment.

Much of the discussion of the issues were foiled with similar balanced humour and I dare say it made enjoyable and cerebral television.

In a campaign in which much of the policy discussion has been derailed by Labor’s ongoing internal problems Gillard was able to take some time articulating some visions. Asked to explain why Labor had committed only $277m in mental health spending, specifically targeting suicide prevention, in contrast to the opposition’s $1.5 billion mental health plan, Gillard argued that much of the Coalition’s spending would be taken from other services that would be dealing with mental health treatment - such as the government’s planned Super GP clinics - without straying into a laboured demonisation of Abbott’s policy or raking at length over his record as health minister.

Refreshing stuff.

Save for a couple of unconvincing answers on government controlling the cost of living and her plans to deal with climate change - using the term “settings” rather than “plan” or “policy” - Gillard dealt confidently with most things the audience threw at her, including her plan to deal with boat arrivals and her atheism.

But it was just an hour of TV. Projecting the same poise and confidence in the hectic pace of day-to-day campaigning where the key is getting the right grabs used on the television news and on radio over the two long weeks to come is a different matter.

At least it’s at the start of the last week but one and the government has time to rebuild momentum. Abbott makes his appearance at the start of the final week. It will be high wire TV.

Most commented

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213 comments

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    • Brad of Bentleigh says:

      12:46am | 10/08/10

      Overstating things a bit don’t you think? Gillards performane was good to be sure… but the questions weren’t exactly challenging, perhaps two (predictably) moderately difficult questions in an entire hour of supposed “Q&A”... what a wasted opportunity.

      Reply

    • Underarm delivery says:

      01:36am | 10/08/10

      Bit soft, as you’d expect from Sno Cone Tone and rent-a-crowd. Bet you a hundred bucks the questions are more provocative next week for Abbot.

      As for the Latham question, she answered it exactly as anyone would have. It was a Dorothy Dixer. A better question would be tell us about Craig Emerson and tools. On a scale from 1 to 10, whaddya reckon it is, Jules?

    • Joe says:

      01:44am | 10/08/10

      Yeah the questions were pretty soft and just gave Gillard a chance to rabbit on. Like on faith where she mentioned her former pastor. Makes you sick to see what she will say to hide what she really believes these days. She isn’t honest enough to admit she thinks those of faith are insane.

    • Phil says:

      08:11am | 10/08/10

      Brad

      Correct it was a polished performance, but any questions that were a bit tough and there was only the odd one, were not answered correctly. Just as Swan yesterday could not answer a questions properly, I think Jules thinks if she laughs and has some humour you will forget the question. That or she repeats the question then goes off partonising the questioner but not actually answering it.

      MRRABBIT will no doubt get questions from gays, to abortion, Ru486, sex outside of marriage which of course is the only sort Jules has had, ripping a billion out of medicare etc etc.

      It did look for the part as a rent a crowd. No one asked if Kevin was so toxic 6 weeks ago why is he not now? That question everyone in Australia wants answered. How are you going to be different?

    • Dovif says:

      08:39am | 10/08/10

      Agreed completely
      She talked and talked on but generally did not answer any of the Questions

      I do not think anyone know who the real Julia is.

      For Abbott, we know who he is, he is Catholic and is proud of it, he likes to keep fit, he has a family and 2 daughters who does not think much of him. He is happy with who he is and is proud to display who he is.

      Who is Julia, apart from being female and an ex lawyer, we finds out very little about her? She never give any straight answer, it is always consensus politics ... citizen assembly, everyone should have their own view, etc

      She just want to ensure she does not lose any vote ... she has no conviction. That makes her a bad PM

    • Rod says:

      08:59am | 10/08/10

      THat is an interesting take, Brad, but I don’t think it is correct.  The questions asked were generally much more focussed and relevant than the interminable guff about Rudd being served up by the supposed “professional” journos out there.  Hey, some of them actually went to issues of policy!

      She handled them all with a remarkable blend of directness and humour.  Strength without arrogance. I suspect any “swinging voters” who watched the show will have been very, very impressed.

    • Daniel says:

      09:17am | 10/08/10

      Dovif: Really? You know that much? Here’s what I know about Julia: She’s an atheist and is proud of it. Is in a long term relationship with Tim Mathieson, who has three children, and she has 2 great parents that are extremely proud of her. See, I can talk rubbish too.

    • Brad Coward says:

      12:40pm | 10/08/10

      Tony Jones claimed that the audience was “balanced”.  If that was the case, then where were the tough questions ? 

      It was little more than a love-fest for ALP supporters.  Smiles all round, you could almost feel the love in the room.  All that was missing from the proceedings was Donna Summer’s version of ” I Feel Love ” playing at a moderate level in the background.  Everything was so sickeningly sweet that I had no need to add sugar to my cup of coffee.  What I find truly sad, is that all of that love and veneration would still have been forthcoming from the loaded audience, had a 5kg sack of spuds been introduced as the leader of the ALP instead of Gillard. 

      No doubt, the same ” balanced ” audience will be on hand when Abbott faces up to Q & A next week.  Yes, of course.  It will be a balanced audience.  I’d imagine that GetUp! has already got the bus booked.

    • James1 says:

      01:06pm | 10/08/10

      Out of interest, what would you have asked her Brad?

    • Bruce says:

      01:43pm | 10/08/10

      Its Q & A !!. All labor politicians get a soft ride on this show. The show lost me some months ago when Lindsay Tanner was on, when asked a difficult question by a young girl from the floor which appeared to contradict what Tanner was saying it was subsequently glossed over by Tony Jones and Lindsay Tanner. The young girl was told by Tony Jones that her information was incorrect. As it turned out it was correct and then ignored by most of the media the next day. Wish I could remember more, but those who saw the show would remember it.

    • Jack Thomas says:

      02:19pm | 10/08/10

      I once scored a hundred against my little brother in my backyard with my little sister at wicket keeper.

      Why don’t I get the same adulation as Julia, it was the same thing.

    • Gregg says:

      03:36pm | 10/08/10

      For starters James1:
      1. The budget was formed with a large basis on a new taxing regime for resources and amidst much reaction from the mining industry you had your ministers negotiate a deal with just three companies and not even the peak body involved.
      On questioning of the new budget figures, it was suddenly revealed that another 10B had been discovered but of course that will be dependent on the resource commodity prices continuing to be high.
      With that kind of performance by your treasurer, what faith can the country have in the national budgetting process and your promises in regard to returning to a balanced budget.
      Is the government going to undertake further negotiation with the peak body and the approximate 3000 other mining entities, many who may face great difficulty in justifying new projects financing in the future.
      2. The Homes Insulation scheme turned out to be a deathly disaster because of various work practices and shonky operators [ Julia may have even referred to shonks ] but there were many good operators left out in the cold with stick and staff for a program suddenly pulled.
      Why was not more done to weed out the shonks and have standards enforced.
      What is the program for homes to be examined to ensure safety and are you going to have a compensation program for those good companies you shut the door on.
      3. You claim to have saved 200,000 jobs and despite whatever economic study that may be based on, does it not sound too much like a nice round figure?
      What was the stimulus package component you feel led to that result and is a figure of $250,000/job a good result?
      4. There are many school buildings/facilities that have been built whether or not they were needed and many overpriced .
      Given that school halls are likely to be used for a very small % of 24/7 what justification other than jobs was used do in considering them a suitable investment.
      5. These jobs are only financed for a certain period and with global economics not fully resolved, what is your Plan B if manufacturing in China goes south and takes their demand for our resources with it.
      Depending on Answer:
      A significant drop in resources demand will likely see commodity prices drop and hence the income your budget is very reliant on.
      So what are the next steps in regard to any future stimulus, a double budget shortfall and how much more will be borrowed.
      6. Labor do seem to think it is fine to have significant borrowings, living on credit you could say and a great departure from your predecessor’s position of claiming to be a fiscal conservative.
      This is akin to people personally living on borrowings for unsubstantial assetts, so how do you see the governments actions as being at all rational in that regard.
      7. Asylum seekers arriving via people smuggling is something you are struggling to deal with and seem to have no plan for.
      Your immigration minister has claimed there is no queue that people with access to money are jumping but there are millions in refugee camps that these people are bypassing and so is his no queue just a fabrication of this own thinking or do you agree there is no queue.
      It has also been claimed that the surge in asylum seekers has occurred as a reult of local push factors and not the revoking of the TPVs and is that not more head in the sand action for the refugee centres in Pakistan and India have been there for more than several years now and the surge did follow the revoking of the TPVs.
      Why are you not considering re-instating the TPVs as an attempt to have the boats frequency reduced to what it had been for the more boats on the water also means more deaths at sea.
      So James, how would you respond?

    • Robert Smissen, rural SA, God's own country says:

      06:19pm | 10/08/10

      Underarm & Joe, spot on, what’s the bet that the same pro Labor crowd is wheeled in next week too. Tony Jones is a Labor stooge if there ever was one.

    • Underhill says:

      09:20pm | 10/08/10

      Instead of complaining about the questions - go on the show yourself and do some interrogating. You can sit there all smug with your list of questions but it’s not going to change anything.

      And anyway, most of your questions rehash issues that have long long long been discussed and your question regarding debt is just misleading (particularly your argument that we’re ‘living on debt’) - Australia’s debt levels are tiny compared to the Western average and the chances of a rapid decline in demand from China is very unlikely in the next few years.

      There’s some points to your questions and i completely agree that our politicians need to be put on the spot and asked the hard questions, but you seem so one sided that it’s hard to take you seriously.

    • Sirro says:

      12:48am | 10/08/10

      Well ... thought she did ok ... there wasnt too many tough questions though really ... lots of sympathetic Adelaide supporters no doubt. Lets hope Mr Abbott gets the same courtesy. The stripy jacket is starting to wear out.

      She did state though that the coal industry wouldnt jack up their price of coal to electricity generators because the miners can only charge world prices and are therefore dependant on the world market to set the price they get.

      This is a half-truth at best and is a good example of how Swan and Gillard really haven’t got much of a clue on how the economy actually works.

      Yes the base level of the coal price is set by world supply/demand issues. Local miners though are certainly able to raise their prices to local generators as they have a competitive supply advantage over foreign miners in terms of the differential in the costs of delivery. Its called basis.

      There will be very little stopping domestic miners adding on the extra costs of the new mining tax when they sell their coal to Austalian users of the coal. They can simply raise the price right up to the level where imported coal (potentially from Brazil?) becomes a viable alternative for the generators. Its unlikely that the very small miners that are excluded from the tax due to their lower profits will be able to compete as they will struggle to guarentee the supply that the generators need.

      All in all ... its far more likely to add to the cost of electricity for consumers than any supposed tax on large retailers (which has now been negated by Abbott’s 1.5% cut in company tax to all anyway).

      Ditto the iron ore version of the tax though the end user paying is likely the building industry that Swan and Gillard were so keen to prop up by blowing 16 Billion $$ on some school playground equipment and a toilet block.

      Reply

    • Squishy says:

      11:44am | 10/08/10

      You don’t honestly think they’re doing that at the moment?  As long as the import price doesn’t change, the motivation for changing domestic coal prices doesn’t change.  Sorry, but you don’t have much of a clue about how the economy actually works either.

    • Robert Smissen, rural SA, God's own country says:

      06:23pm | 10/08/10

      Mate! She’s a bloody Victorian & is the member for either Boganville or Altona, her loyalty to SA is ZERO ! ! !

    • Judith V says:

      10:37am | 11/08/10

      Greg, the schools up my way are very grateful for what they got, 11 years of the Howard government and all they did was give us the GST, the biggest tax ever.The money still went to the economy which is what it was supposed to do.You are a LNP supporter by the sounds of thing’s so you would never be happy with what the Labor party did, so stop prancing around like the farm’s prized cock! I would be willing to bet you were a bully at school and a “do as I say not as I do"kind of guy. Don’t like my remarks? well that’s how you came over to me with you r ranting. Credit where it’s due from now on, OKAY?

    • Joe says:

      01:38am | 10/08/10

      It was a very boring show. The show normally works because you have the opposition to call you out when you are just spinning (as Gillard did) and you have the public to ask the questions that Jones is too scared to asked. But last night it was a bit of a flirt fest with vetted questions like the one about the bible that Jones knew was wrong (she didn’t swear on the bible). So very unexciting or testing.

      Reply

    • BobM says:

      07:54am | 10/08/10

      Agree Joe, it was boring and Julia just droned on and on. The tweets were all carefully selected pro Labor as well. I’m sure the audience won’t be quite as kind to Abbott next week and everything he says will be dissected and screened for any ‘gaffes’. There are plenty of groups who are happy to  
      Take offense at anything.  Why don’t they get Alan Jones instead of Tony Jones - that would have been more interesting?!

    • fairsfair says:

      11:24am | 10/08/10

      Totally agree. I switched channels toward the end because the answers all began with “***giggle giggle*** That is a very good question and I am glad you asked it becuase that gives me the opportunity to….**insert somethign I have heard a thousand times before**” It was a snoozefest and there should have been a straight up ban on questions about KRudd. I am TIRED of hearing about that. It is in the past and there are bigger issues for us to deal with at the moment - like we have the choice to vote for Tweedel dumb and Tweedel dumb this election. Totally agree with comments on Abbott - he will get slammed next weekend and will not be treated with the same bubblewrap hands as JG was.

    • Kevin says:

      12:33pm | 10/08/10

      Yes it is boring watching someone you hate so much do so well.  The reality is that Julia handled an hour of questioning with poise, intelligence and humour and delivered a virtually flawless performance.  Abbott, on the other hand, looks creepy and untrustworthy and I look forward to watching him fronting the questioning next week.

    • Winston Bolte says:

      01:11pm | 10/08/10

      So why didn’t Tony Abbot also appear to challenge her??? The fact is he is a coward and cannot handle a gloves off debate against her - she has his measure and he knows it - the only way for him to win is to run a negative campaign and try not to make a mistake

    • Reg says:

      05:54pm | 10/08/10

      Now when TONY appears on this program, I don’t want any of you looking at his elephant ears. Promise? wink

    • Bruce says:

      07:11pm | 10/08/10

      Winston: Gillard initially knocked back doing another debate immediately after the first debate. Then she changed her mind. But then a woman can do that !

    • ZeldaFitz says:

      01:57am | 10/08/10

      Despite resembling a licorice all-sort, JG finally showed the poise and sincerity that she had been known for prior to the June 24 coup d’etat.

      I don’t think it’s fair to say that the questions were “easy” or that the crowd was biased. The ABC went to great lengths to ensure that the audience was evenly split among ALP and Coalition voters. The difficulty of a question is defined by the ease at which one can answer it - it was the PM’s smooth responses that made the questions appear favourable. One of the more difficult questions, on the cost of living, was asked by a former Liberal staffer who had worked for Jackie Kelly and Amanda Vanstone! I’m sure he is not what JG would call an amicable questioner. Despite this, her answers were elegant, simple without being condescending and showed that she really does have a broad understanding of a range policy levels. In short, she looked Prime Ministerial.

      It’s such a shame that Q and A needed to get the PM on the show before the audience would even consider asking relevant, policy-based questions.

      Reply

    • farmer says:

      07:45am | 10/08/10

      Get me a bucket….Quick! The woman is a liar - she says what you want to hear.
      No, the audience wasn’t a neat 50-50 split. Lots of groundwork was done by Q&A’s minions to find the right people to ask the right questions.
      Even then, she couldn’t ring true…..lots of ‘ums’ & ‘ers’. If she had the strength of her convictions to come out & be honest, she wouldn’t need that nervous laugh that precedes every lie.

    • Conniption says:

      08:05am | 10/08/10

      @ farmer
      Goodness…have you listened to TAbbott in recent weeks? 
      The stuttering, the hesitations, the lack of substance in his replies tell us, he is being exceedingly careful to stay on script ...the script prepared by the grey men who were named in yesterday’s papers…
      Having put our PM under scrutiny, what do you say about TAbbott?

    • farmer says:

      08:52am | 10/08/10

      @ Conniption: Are you sure you want to take this on? Tell me that Little Miss Fibber doesn’t tell porkies; tell me she doesn’t have an agenda for control of the general population; tell me about her agenda for control of the internet; control of land ownership; control of education; control of health which will ultimately exclude certain groups; control of primary industries which includes mining.

      This woman is only the lying face of the ever-ambitious & cruel Tony Burke. It’s extremely helpful she is a female: this softens the blow for the Australian population while they deliver the most controlling government policies we will ever see. So she lies: lies about her lack of understanding of business, whether it be big or small. She lies about her understanding of how important land ownership is. She lies about loyalty, compassion, trust, honour, ambition. What was that about playing for the bulldogs?

    • Bob says:

      09:26am | 10/08/10

      >>JG finally showed the poise and sincerity that she had been known for prior to the June 24 coup d’etat.<<

      And we all know how that turned out. Maybe poised and sincere is just how she looks while sharpening the knives.

    • Steven says:

      12:57pm | 10/08/10

      @Farmer- I hope she has an agenda for all of those issues, as i also hope that Tony Abbott has an agenda regarding those issues…thats the whole reason they are running for election i would think.

    • Front Row says:

      06:59pm | 10/08/10

      Zelda,
      I can tell you that the publicity note went out to notify ABC broadcasters at around 1030 Friday morning.  By 1200 Friday the seating was fully allocated.
      Does that tell you anything?
      Popular show, indeed. 
      Perhaps people involved in similar TV projects involving audiences in Adelaide volunteering to come out on a cold Monday night could let us know if taking less than 2 hours to fill an audience - from a low key Friday semi-internal ABC announcement to full house booked (and with the audience so perfectly balanced) is some kind of record.
      I don’t know.
      I do know that anyone who wants to heckle the Opposition Leader has at least a week to get organised, get in the audience, and it won’t be staged in the provinces.
      How could the ABC producers possibly work out who was a Labor/Liberal/Green voter in two hours from a random audience call?
      Maybe it’s just me.

    • Front Row says:

      07:01pm | 10/08/10

      Zelda,
      I can tell you that the publicity note went out to notify ABC broadcasters at around 1030 Friday morning.  By 1200 Friday the seating was fully allocated.
      Does that tell you anything?
      Popular show, indeed. 
      Perhaps people involved in similar TV projects involving audiences in Adelaide volunteering to come out on a cold Monday night could let us know if taking less than 2 hours to fill an audience - from a low key Friday semi-internal ABC announcement to full house booked (and with the audience so perfectly balanced) is some kind of record.
      I don’t know.
      I do know that anyone who wants to heckle the Opposition Leader has at least a week to get organised, get in the audience, and it won’t be staged in the provinces.
      How could the ABC producers possibly work out who was a Labor/Liberal/Green voter in two hours from a random audience call?
      Maybe it’s just me.

    • PaulB says:

      05:51am | 10/08/10

      The Latham story is one of the sadder moments of this election to me.  Firstly because of how he managed to dispose of his own last shreds of credibility at that moment, secondly how his performance appears to have actually helped Gillard, and thirdly how it begged the question of which media backroomer put him up to it.

      Reply

    • Rosie says:

      08:06am | 10/08/10

      Give Latham a break, I like the man because at the moment he is the only Labor person that will tell it like it is.

      I really would like Tony Abbott & Julia Gillard to be interviewed by him because he will ask the hard questions that we want answered.

      Come on guys, this is the 21st century and some of us have to accept but not agree to what is happening before our eyes and the thinking of the intelligentsia sect. eg like having a PM that is an athesist and will shack up in the Lodge with her boyfriend if Labor wins the election.

      I think we can all disagree with Latham’s personal attack on Laurie Oakes. At the same we must not forget how the soap opera started - the axing of Australia’s elected PM by his Deputy who is now our PM.

    • Squishy says:

      11:50am | 10/08/10

      The soap opera of Mark Latham began when he lost the 2004 election.  He’s been spewing bile for the last 6 years, and hasn’t managed to keep from taking potshots at the Labor party ever since.

      He had the opportunity to ask Julia Gillard the hard question, and he ended up asking her:

      a) Why she tried to bar him from 60 minutes; and
      b) Whether she had a dig to make about Kevin Rudd.

      Hard questions indeed.  He’s a waste of air(-time) at the moment.

    • Judith V says:

      11:59am | 10/08/10

      I have never heard so much name calling since I left school, calling a Prime Minster a Liar is a big call and if i was her you would be in court for defamation.How about telling us where Tony got his knives from to use on Mr Turnbull, you are pretty good at talking about back stabbing but no mention about the blood on Tony’s hands, get real, clean your one eye, it’s getting dirty.

    • David J says:

      01:00pm | 10/08/10

      Squishy I totally agree and TV channels that give the man air time Like Paul Murray are just compounding the vengance of this man. Hes waited 6 years for a chance to get back at Labor. The only person he was worried about when he asked Julia a question was himself. He keeps attacking Rudd for not getting over being ousted and its obvious he has not recovered himself. He’s a sad sad man

    • Jo Tralt says:

      06:20am | 10/08/10

      Sirro - her simplistic response at least avoids the ability to get it wrong, as you have. To suggest domestic miners currently price their coal or ore into the Australian market at anything other than proximity to the import parity price is to suggest they are devoid of any economic sense. In the domestic context they argued against the new tax because they already price relative to import parity and there would be insufficient headroom to pass it on….so they would take a hit for the better part of the full amount of the tax increase.

      Reply

    • MrX says:

      06:42am | 10/08/10

      If Abbott gets the same questions about hair, voice, marital status and other matters totally irrelevant to being the PM, then sure, he will be given equal treatment with Gillard.

      One of the best performances I’ve seen from her, and it’s in part due to the fact that she had unfettered speaking time without some rude politician cutting her off, interrupting, and so on (see..Mark Latham).

      It rates head over heels above anything Abbott has given. But of course, I often find that women leaders have to be ridiculously exceptional compared to their male counterparts to be where they are. Such is the stupidity of those who never recognise this, focusing their questions on the personal things Gillard can’t change - such as her voice. Give it up already.

      You want a fair campaign? Then ask some better policy questions. There wasn’t one on the internet filter last night and there should have been. I would have liked to see Gillard try to respond to that.

      Reply

    • Joan says:

      07:44am | 10/08/10

      Disagree, dead boring, except for the Latham spice added, the only time the audience came alive from the comatose state Gillard had droned them into. I was begining to think the audience was made up of cardboard cutouts with occasional real thing tossed in. By the way come to think of it was it the real Julia?

    • BobM says:

      08:01am | 10/08/10

      Mr - Julia is not ‘ridiculously exceptional’ by any stretch of the imagination. She will be a droning embarrassment on the world stage if she ends up as PM of Australia.

    • Swingvoter says:

      09:41am | 10/08/10

      Agree. And if Abbott gets the same questions… well he’ll put his foot in it again.. we all know he’s a troglodyte that will take back us to the 20’s. And for the libs talking about economic credentials well maybe they should explain the $9 billion hole in the Coalition budget.

    • Reg says:

      12:20pm | 10/08/10

      Well well, this IS a little moribund group feeding off each other. .wink

    • Brad of Bentleigh says:

      12:23pm | 10/08/10

      @Swingvoter: Quote: “trolglodyte who wants to take us back to the 20’s” with a name like “Swingvoter” and a comment like that, it’s pretty clear which side you barrack for.
      How far back does the Fabien society/Socialist forum banner waiver want to take us? Think union power, think strikes, think cripped economy, thik high taxes, think death duties, think taxing the family home, think abolishing of negative gearing, I could go on. If you want to vote for that, you’re as silly as your comments suggest.

    • Richard says:

      01:52pm | 10/08/10

      The roaring 20’s was a thumping great lark for everyone actually swingvoter: The most uninhibited and fun-loving decade in modern history (up until that nasty stock market crash in 1929 put an end to the party). You clearly have no understanding of history: you probably meant to say that Abbott would take us back to the 50’s (incidently one of the most economically productive and technologically innovative decades in modern history).

      I often have thought that people without an acceptable grasp of history should not be given the vote; because there are always patterns that reoccur, and unless we can learn from past mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them.

    • Sean says:

      02:20pm | 10/08/10

      The people who keep calling Labor politicians will then think it OK if I label Coalition MPs as Facist because of the way they handled the waterfront dipute or their other anti-union moves.

    • Reg says:

      04:12pm | 10/08/10

      And Richard, the word is recur. Tell the Germans what a lark it was until the Yanks pulled in their loans and left them destitute, thus motivating them to back you know whom.  It wasn’t hard for the 1950 to be innovative after a rather devastating war. I often advocate people who suggest disenfranchising the middle class and beneath for trivial reasons, be roundly whipped and fed on bread and water. Or worse.

    • Richard says:

      06:40pm | 10/08/10

      Yes Reg~ Mr. “Pedantic” himself, history does “recur”. Obviously the roaring twenties weren’t a great lark for Germans in the Weimar Republic because of hyperinflation, as indeed I suppose you could also say for Russians in the newly created Soviet Union suffering the effects of civil war and socialist restructuring (read: lining up all the intellectuals and shooting them: socialist paradise indeed), but on the whole for most of the developed world the decade was characterised by excess and extravagance.

      By the way I don’t suggest we disenfranchise anyone, I merely encourage people to be valuable contributors to democracy by educating themselves about history. I just wanted to point out that an informed vote is more conducive to delivering good governance, instead of making ignorance a virtue like many current commentators would seek to do (though admittedly my rhetoric was over the top).

    • Reg says:

      06:46am | 11/08/10

      Thank you Richard. I use your input to point out that, of all the various triggers, it was the crash of 1929 that most lead to the Second World War. Thus underlining the need for individual countries to play their part in avoiding the recent Global downturn.

      As you rightly point out, there are salient points of history which shall forever remain critical and to use the essential rescue to gain cheap political points, is to indicated how unsophisticated many of your Liberal brethren have become.  Having borrowed from American to pay the imposed war reparations, Germany followed the US lead and had a one great big decade long party. Until of course the US wanted their money back in 1929. 

      Thanks to the decision of the Rudd government, we have played our part in avoiding a repeat of post 1929.  Sorry for niggling about such a writing detail but just in case, take it as a warning if you ever choose to qualify the word “unique.”  Unique is unique. smile

    • dennis poole says:

      07:00am | 10/08/10

      Too easy and too simplistic not enough questions on her past record of economic mismanagement, record borrowing and massive debt. Very obvious it was to make her look good for us all but some of us have good memories and don’t forget she is still part of the gang of four. No real policies and no answers. No hard embarrassing questions bet Tony Abbot is made to look terrible next week.

      Reply

    • Aussie vopter says:

      11:59am | 10/08/10

      Are all the hardline Liberal voters preparing a defence for what they expect will be an appalling performance from Abbott on Q&A next week? That would account for all the claims of soft treatment of Gillard and bets Abbott will be treated harshly. Do you mean someone will finally ask him to provide some policy details? Or perhaps stop his constant negative whining about Labor to finally tell us what he will do for the country?
      I thought Gillard was brilliant - honest and direct, even in her weaker responses about climate change and asylum seekers.

    • Hugh G Rexshun says:

      08:16pm | 10/08/10

      How do we find out exactly “when” Abbott agreed to go on Q&A? I hope it was arranged and locked in months ago. We certainly wouldn’t wouldn’t want to “interrupt his campaign program” with an unarranged appearance seeing as a second leaders debate was unable to be accomodated…

    • Gerard says:

      08:50pm | 10/08/10

      Aussie vopter (Voter?), are you serious? I have never voted Liberal and never will, but it was blatantly obvious last night that ABC support for the Labor party is alive and well. A bunch of irrelevant questions about the leadership takeover, Julia’s appearance and Mark Latham, followed by a bunch of vague, sycophantic responses which told viewers absolutely nothing. No mention of any sort of broad vision for the country, no questioning of Labor’s proposed internet censorship scheme (which appears to have been lifted directly from the pages of Nineteen Eighty-Four), and only a brief reference to her oversight of the disastrous BER programme.

      I have no doubt that Abbott’s performance next week will be appalling, but, on balance, it is hard to imagine him being asked the Today Tonight-style questions Gillard received.

    • David says:

      07:12am | 10/08/10

      Julia the show pony . She was not priministerial in the slightest , Her response to the questions were overly simplistic to the point of making one feel insulted to the point of nausea ,
      I wouldn’t care what party she represented . To treat her audience like a bunch of school kids was disgraceful .
      She won’t get my vote .

      Reply

    • thatmosis says:

      07:12am | 10/08/10

      Watched about 10 mins before realising that it was a Gillrudd love fest. What a crock. I’ll bet Abbott gets all the tough questions next week. This really showed the ABC bias towards Gillrudd and the labor Party. The chairman of the ABC should sack those that dont walk the fence as this is getting out of hand.

      Reply

    • Ben in Canberra says:

      07:12am | 10/08/10

      Lets be honest, she was given a rails run by not only TJ but also a partisan home crowd. For her to have looked anything but prime ministerial would have been difficult. Abbott has the advantage now of being able to see the analysis of such a light on ‘Q&A’ session and can formulate strategy accordingly.

      Reply

    • Mazzy says:

      07:18am | 10/08/10

      Julia Gillard was great!

      Reply

    • Skip says:

      07:21am | 10/08/10

      Some of the questions were just ridiculous, I bet Tony Abbott won’t get off so lightly and give us a break , how many times does he have to say that the work choices is dead and buried and that is what lost Liberals the last Election, but I guess she will say anything to spin and twist her way into the Lodge to let us be taken over by the Unions.  I wonder if the spare bedrooms will be there for her Unionist mates. No one questioned her about her communist background I wish they had to see the lying look on her face

      Reply

    • Louisa says:

      12:33pm | 10/08/10

      What Tony should ask next week is ” As Julia received the questions beforehand why didn’t I”

    • Rosie says:

      07:22am | 10/08/10

      What we are now seeing is a female version of the 2007 charasmatic Kevin Rudd who fooled the Australian people because he had the gift of the gab to become the most popular Australia PM in Australia. It was an incredible result to remove a 12 years Liberal Govt.

      Always knew she would perform well, too well actually. Julia the actress that was what I saw, firlting, charming, giggling and best of all was the hand actions that if Tony Jones was any closer he would have coped one of her karate chops. Full marks, Julia knew her lines and didn’t falter, the Adelaide auidence were mesmerized.

      The Soap Opera, “The Vain & The Ruthless continues…....................

      Reply

    • Diamantina Dick says:

      08:37am | 10/08/10

      You sum it up for me Rosie. A polished preformance, but fake. Smoothing over all those annoying little real world stuff up’s was a real challenge though you have to admit. You could almost buy it eh!

      One more thing, “who were your political mentors? My parents.” A classic example of a patronising non-answer. Jones should have asked her “what about after you grew up and left home?”  but that’s not his job is it?

    • Gerard says:

      08:59pm | 10/08/10

      “What we are now seeing is a female version of the 2007 charasmatic Kevin Rudd who fooled the Australian people because he had the gift of the gab to become the most popular Australia PM”

      I couldn’t have said it better. The Red Barren is following Rudd’s 2007 blueprint impeccably. Surely the electorate can’t be stupid enough to fall for it twice in three years?

    • Trajan. says:

      07:22am | 10/08/10

      Ms. Gillard is suitably vague on ‘climate change’ because CC is and shouldn’t be an issue in this election, too many other far more important crises to be addressed,  like;  give the people more money in their pockets, less taxes please.
      Skeptocats.

      Reply

    • Brendan McClean says:

      07:30am | 10/08/10

      A poised and crafted performance that went absolutely nowhere. Lots of “empathy” with everyone who asked a question, lots of telling us about her background and family but not one direct answer. I watch Q&A for robust debate on topical issues but last night’s show did nothing to enhance or contibute to the political discourse in this country.  It will be interesting to watch next week just to see if Abbot gets the same soft questions from the crowd and the same feathergloves approach from host Tony Jones. I would suspect not!

      Reply

    • BobM says:

      08:09am | 10/08/10

      Why they bothered getting 200 people for the audience is beyond me - they all sat there like stunned mullets. It was hardly a robust questioning session - all nice questions about her voice, hair colour and mum & dad. Give us a break, who cares.  A couple of questions about the economy and climate change with a couple of well rehearsed answers. Total BS.

    • Against the Man says:

      07:33am | 10/08/10

      Oh come on, no tough questions and Gillard acting like a coy, teenage girl. It would have been more interesting if Rudd was there or Latham. Gillard is tough mean cookie, beware Australia!

      Reply

    • Renee says:

      07:37am | 10/08/10

      Julia is an inhabitant of Vanity Fair.  And she knows how to use her wiles as a woman.  Would we like it if Tony showed flirtatious behavior as some men at parties do?  Then how Julia acts is unacceptable.  Come on guys and lasses!  Wake up a bit.  Do not be deceived by that feminine approach.  Please answer this.  Has she done anything worth while since being in power, joint power with Rudd and now on her own steam but whoever is in the background jerking the puppet is only to be guessed at, so far.  Can she take Australia forward without any of the mess-ups and bad decisions made by her so far?  Impossible.  She does not have the experience, the economic savvy, wisdom or right background to be able to steer the country.  Tony Abbott is made of far better stuff.

      Reply

    • Wilma J Craig says:

      07:39am | 10/08/10

      Q&A was the most contrived, scripted farce! Ms Gillard did not answer the questions, she skirted around them. Even her response to the silly question about redheads, of which she is not one, was evasive. Where were all the “spontaneous” questions from the audience? I only counted 3 & one, typically the last one, came from Lowitja O’Donoghue in which she asked why indigeneous matters were always put to the bottom of the pile. Just like her question.
      Tony Jones selected people from a list, he is never seen to do that on other Q&A programmes. Sorry, but, just as I don’t see Abbott as Prime Ministerial, I don’t think Gillard is either! She did not answer the questions openly & honestly - even when pressed, repeatedly, by Tony Jones to do so. Old,phony Julia is no different to New, Real Julia

      Reply

    • Harriet says:

      07:54am | 10/08/10

      @wilma no wonder you are crying Julia was really impressive. Cannot wait for ummm, ummmm, ahhhhh Tony next week.

    • Wilma J Craig says:

      08:55am | 10/08/10

      Harriet, there writes the committed Labor voter!!
      I was looking forward to an open, honest programme. Not the stage-mamaged affair we got. This was not Tony Jones’ fault. Yes. I too can’t wait for Tony Abbott performance next week. Did you watch his televised Policy launch on Sunday? If not that is a pity for, though he may have been addressing the converted - & remember there are a lot of people who, though every bit as staunch Liberal Supporters as you are a Labor Supporter, don’t like him. He knows it so he had to win them over.
      Hopefully Abbott’s minders will allow him, and more importantly, the audience, more freedom during next Monday’s Q&A.

    • Nicole says:

      09:01am | 10/08/10

      Oh Harriet, when are you going to wake up to the fact that someone else is doing the driving for your Queen Jooolya?

    • John Casserly says:

      07:51am | 10/08/10

      I cannot believe that Australians have witnessed the pathetic administration of Government and thoughtless waste of Money by Labour Party and yet they are still considered a chance of winning the election.
      Why are the tough questions not aimed also at the Greens who also have pathetic ideas that shall add enormous cost to Aussie households and their vote helps the Labour Govt. over the Line.

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      08:35am | 10/08/10

      Then John it would appear that you believe in trickle-down economics and that all the money was wasted only because it was not directed into the coffers of big business? The BIG question is, do the Liberals share your belief and put the people second? Or third? Or fourth? The US has 10% unemployment, would you prefer that Australia had the same?

    • Daniel says:

      09:20am | 10/08/10

      Enormous costs to Aussie households like…. a ridiculous paid parental leave scheme?

    • Daryl says:

      01:31pm | 10/08/10

      Daniel, the impact of the 3% superannuation increase will lead to inflation and job losses! What about the inflationary impacts of the ETS, we’re already seeing power prices rise in anticipation? Both will have a much greater impact than the temporary levy proposed by the LNP. And thats before we even mention the price impact and the job losses from the mining tax. Add to this, the fact that the LNP are proposing tax cuts to PAYG taxpayers and the fact Labor have wasted billions of taxpayers money on silly schemes and rorts, Australian households are likely to be far worse off under Labor. And Reg, come on, what do you call the insulation scheme, fuelwatch failure, 2020 summit, school halls rip-offs, grocery choices failure and $900 hand-outs to dead people if it’s not a waste of taxpayers money? What planet have you been living on?

    • Reg says:

      05:19pm | 10/08/10

      I call them trivia Daryl when the employment it provided is taken into consideration.

      I also call them flotsam for scavenging Liberals to feed on. I’m sure there were more successes than failures in the insulation project, but do your best with what’s left. Schools? The 3% complaints in NSW with 57% of the schools. Perhaps you can tell me what percentage of the hand-outs went to dead people? Your complaint sounds great, but put some figures to it.  While you’re at it, tell us how Bernie Fraser sees your deceptive scare tactics in relation to debt.

      All in all, far less expensive than one F111 subject to a non-traditional landing.

    • Daryl says:

      09:55am | 11/08/10

      Reg, the problem is that Labor seem to have the same trivial attitude to taxpayers money as you do. The way they throw it around and waste it is a disgrace! Rorting of government revenue (our revenue) by Labor backed builders is anything but trivial. And we had the situation in NSW where bribes were being offered to headmasters by the state ALP to keep stories out of the media. I think you are underestimating the importance of Labor’s failures on a raft of issues. The $40.4billion defecit is real. The record foreign debt levels are real. As for percentages - it doesn’t matter! Why should dead people and people living overseas get a $900 handout yet people like myself who pay a considerable amount of tax and have three children and a wife to support get nothing! I hate this Labor party, they are wasteful, they lie, they are the worst government we have enver had and are just plain bad for Australia. They must go!

    • Reg says:

      07:54am | 10/08/10

      A good illustration of why a Labor win is so much greater an achievement than is a Liberal win.

      Everyone knows that to win a fight requires the concentration of effort. The Labor Party has concerns for every individual in the electorate, a broad goal that means dissemination and dissipation of effort. The Liberal Party has the goal of pleasing big business, a narrow goal and one that simplifies the concentration of their attention. Beyond that, their goal is merely to passivate and manipulate the electorate by any means at hand. Labor always has a bigger and more noble task than have the narrow based Liberals. No wonder the Liberals need to be in coalition to govern. If the Nationals were not so eager to take government hand-outs they would be more convincing as Liberal partners.

      Reply

    • Diamantina Dick says:

      08:48am | 10/08/10

      A couple of facts for you Reg.

      Labor is in coalition with the Greens.

      Labour will only ever do well when Capital does well.

    • Dash says:

      08:49am | 10/08/10

      Yeah right Reg, don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story! Labor are so concerned for the electorate they have burdened us with record levels of foreign debt, they’ve racked up a $40.4b defecit and burnt the savings of the previous government in about half an hour. How noble of them! They are so concerned for the electorate they are pushing up power and utility prices because of their ETS. They are so concerned for the electorate they have canned the 200+ childcare facilities they promised at the last election, they have not delivered the “more affordable housing” they promised, they haven’t delivered the “cheaper better childcare” they promised us in 07 either! And they are looking to hit business with the additional cost of a 3% increase in superannuation contributions which will increase prices and result in job losses. Labor are so caring they have burnt peoples houses down under the insulation fiasco. They are so caring about taxpayers money, they allowed it to be rorted under the school halls program. Now they are talking about taxing the one sector driving our economy, reducing margins and forcing investment overseas. How very noble! And don’t talk to me about coalition when more of the primary vote is for the LNP and yet Labor look like falling across the line because of their coalition with the greens!

    • Yvonne says:

      08:57am | 10/08/10

      What the hell - noble!!! None of them are noble, from either side of politics. We need practical politicians. How is it unpractical to make sure that business can make profit. Who do you think employs the masses? If business cannot exist in an environment where they are hampered to make money there will be NO jobs!! I wonder how many Labor voters have ever had any insight to the risks and problems to run a business. Not Joolia, not Kev…no idea. Get real Reg. Sure a labor win would be a great achievement, especially since there is no sensible reason to vote for them. Bit of a sad refelction on the people I guess.

    • MarK says:

      08:03am | 10/08/10

      And Julia was great one on one with Tony Jones as host.

      Wow, just wow, who would have thought it?

      Reply

    • Judith V says:

      11:21am | 11/08/10

      to Yvonne, i would like to know what you do for a living, I’m a primary producer and I’m getting screwed by big business. When have you ever seen Tony Abbott talk to the owners of the corner shop, never I would say, but dinner’s with Gerry Harvey, quit often .

    • Tony says:

      08:16am | 10/08/10

      The Liberal Party hacks are out in force this morning desperately talking down Gillard’s performance on Q&A., which was a tour de force by thwe way. She has charisma by the drayload. She answered directly and convincingly. No wonder the Liberals are wetting themselves. It might even be fun to have her as Opposition Leader, doing Rabbott slowly.

      Reply

    • Lizzie says:

      09:08am | 10/08/10

      Tony, I am NOT a Liberal Party hack. I am a swinging voter who voted for Rudd. I am appalled at the sheer magnitude of Labors waste & incompetence & will be voting for the Libs this time. Charisma does not mean she’ll be a good PM. Being a good PM means listening to the voters & it seems that Labor listen more to the Union bosses that run the party than they listen to the voters. And as for you comment about doing Rabbot slowly, Abbott is a tough cookie, & having to deal with Union thug bully boys in her ranks doesn’t equip her to deal with a Rhodes Scholar!

    • Daryl says:

      09:11am | 10/08/10

      Yeah Tony it was a good “performance”. But don’t you think people should judge Gillard and Labor on what it does rather than what it says?Look back at the 07 campaign and the things it said and then either didn’t deliver/lied (200+ childcare centres, grocery choice, fuelwatch, more affordable housing, cheaper better childcare, fiscal conservatism, we wount touch the private health tax rebate) or what it tried to deliver and made a complete mess of (school halls rorts, insulation scheme fiasco, green loans waste, ETS backflip, East Timor embarressment, profit tax backdown). Then add to that the record foreign debt, the 40.4billion defecit and the fact that they spent the surplus without any major capital work. When you look at actions rather than words, it’s hard to believe why anyone would be voting Labor or why people still believe them! There’s more to government than tour de force spin. Talk is cheap and lies are expensive Tony.

    • Steven says:

      01:15pm | 10/08/10

      Sorry Daryl it must not have reached you yet but we, the rest of the world, had a global financial crisis; bit like having the chess board thrown up in the air and then told to continue playing from where you left off…

    • Daryl says:

      03:30pm | 10/08/10

      Steven, oh yeah that’s right it was all the GFCs fault. Silly me to think the waste and rorts was just Labor incompetence! The promise not to touch the private health rebate - oops GFC, the insulation fiasco - oops GFC, Labor backed builders rorting taxpayers money under the school halls scheme - oops GFC, the East Timor announcement of a policy that didn’t exist - oops GFC, the ETS backflip - oops GFC, the failure to implement root and branch tax reform - oops GFC, the backdown on the non-negotiable profit tax nonsense - oops GFC, More affordable housing - oops GFC. Sorry, what I thought was Labor’s inability to get anything right was all the GFCs fault. I guess China’s appetite for our natural resources, the Howard governments financial services reforms, the fact that they’d paid off Labor’s debt and left a huge surplus had nothing to do with anything though eh Steven.

    • Steven says:

      04:39pm | 10/08/10

      I would probably say yes to all of them except the East Timor one which was a stupid anouncement, and the ETS one which is because of Tony Abbott,he used it to rise to leadership and Kevin Rudd’s stubbornnes not to take on the Liberals with a douple dissolution on it. Outside of that the GFC would of had some impact, directly or indirectly on economic aspects of all of those decisions, e.g. builders rorting taxpayers money rushed out due to…GFC. I don’t proclaim that the current government is perfect, far from it. I simply think it is demeaning for the opposition to run as if an economic crisis didnt happen.

    • Reg says:

      04:48pm | 10/08/10

      Daryl, sarcasm does not sit well with you. Try thinking active voice, you will feel a lot better. While we’re here, you’d better get back to Tony as well, he too lapses into the same school-boy silliness at times.

    • Paddy says:

      08:17am | 10/08/10

      If Liberals had been in power through the GFC you can bet they would be making it known about how great they are with the economy. As they weren’t in power they now call it wasteful spending. Come on - we are not twits.

      Liberals have claimed ALP introduced economic reform as their own in the past - this time they can thank the present government for keeping this country afloat through bad economic times.

      Liberals install a leader who destroys the ETS and doesn’t believe in science (and therefore climate change) - he then tells the public that the ALP has failed on climate change. Liberals vote with the government to remove TP visas and then go on with an almost criminally negligent campaign about ‘masses of boats’.

      We, the public see through the liberal bullshit. We also see the ALP bullshit. We will gradually see the arrival of a third party.

      For those people going on about swearing on the bible, allegiance to the Queen and if not, it’s unconstitutional etc etc - bugger off - you people are the reason we need a republic.

      Reply

    • Nicole says:

      08:26am | 10/08/10

      Was it the real Jooolya or the fake Jooolya? Not that it really matters because they’re both full of sh!t. Everyone can see through the spin. All that gushing and flirting was just nauseating. She has the ability to make me ill every time I look at her. I wonder if it will be as cushy for Abbott next week? And WTF has John Howard got to do with the price of fish?

      Reply

    • Shane says:

      09:48am | 10/08/10

      Nicole - John Howard has got to do “with the price of fish” when he opened his booted-out-of-office mouth and put his head into the campaign.
      BTW, grow up. She’s got the ability to make you ‘ill’ every time you look at her? If you’re trying to be b**chty, at least try to be witty or humourous.

    • Reg says:

      11:20am | 10/08/10

      Nicole again… then you haven’t seen the add with Joe Houghy and Tony with their embarrassed insincerity all over their faces. I can only think Tony dampened Joe’s spirit or it was the 57th take.

    • Daryl says:

      11:41am | 10/08/10

      It is a good point that Nicole makes though Shane about the real or the fake Julia. I was impressed by her performance but perhaps that’s exactly what it was, a performace. Labor’s actions have not aligned with their words over the last three years. Why should people believe that will change?

    • Nicole says:

      05:31pm | 10/08/10

      Not at all Shane, I’m just stating a fact. If your a little upset now, I can just imagine how you’ll react when your Queen falls flat on her backside, because Abbott will mop the floor with her.

    • craig mills says:

      08:29am | 10/08/10

      Abbott deserves to be given a tough time next week because he hasn’t said anything positive yet. I’d like to know what his vision is for Australia other than a simple 1-4 list of negatives appealing to the lowest common denominator dog whistle slogans like “Stop The Boats”. Seriously, where do we stand as a nation if that’s deemed worthy of being an election issue? There are as many asylum seekers jumping off Qantas planes.

      Reply

    • Dash says:

      09:02am | 10/08/10

      Craig I think you’ll find Labor used “I’ll turn the boats around” during the 07 election campaign. Also, Labor have turned dog whistle slogans into an art-form. “Moving forward”, “More affordable housing” (election lie from 07), “Cheaper better childcare” (election lie from 07), “building the education revolution” (ended in a parliamentary inquiry into rorts), “no child shall live without a laptop” (lie from 07), “I believe in a big Australia” (KRudd 07). Then you have the past bullsh!t “No child shall live in poverty”, “read my lips L.A.W. tax-cuts”, “the recession we had to have”, “Bannana republic” “It’s time” (yeah for Gough to lose the ‘75 election 91 seats to 36). As for asylum seekers, there has been a doubling of illegal immigration and a doubling of legal immigration under the current Labor government. People are concerned about it and it flies in the face of the Gillard lie that she is not for a big Australia and it contradicts what Rudd said in government. That’s why it’s an issue.This Labor party cannot be believed and they cannot deliver!

    • MarK says:

      09:20am | 10/08/10

      And Labor has been full of positives?

    • TimB says:

      01:34pm | 10/08/10

      I would think that kicking the Coalition plan to Labor out of office is a major positive….but that’s just me smile.

    • iansand says:

      08:30am | 10/08/10

      Is everything in Liberal Land a conspiracy?

      Reply

    • MarK says:

      09:21am | 10/08/10

      Only in your mind.

    • Marian Dalton says:

      08:32am | 10/08/10

      The single most disappointing thing about last night’s QandA was how the people who choose the questions wasted much of a broadcast hour asking irrelevant questions about Gillard’s red hair, life choices, etc. It should have been the chance for people to grill the PM on the issues. On the few occasions those question *were* asked, the answers were enlightening - but there should have been more of them.

      By all accounts ‘hundreds’ of questions were submitted for the program. QandA should justify its decision to give nearly 20 minutes to irrelevancies, and barely 2 for questions on indigenous issues and same-sex marriage.

      The only possible way the program can be excused is if it does the same thing to Tony Abbott next week - asks him about his appearance, personal life choices, and Malcolm Turnbull. And it’s a pretty poor excuse.

      As for Gillard’s performance - it was definitely Prime ministerial. it was refreshing to hear her talk about the *majority* of Labor’s climate change policy, rather than re-hash the citizens’ assembly argument again. She gave a qualified mea culpa on the insulation scheme, did not apologise for unpopular policies, explained complex issues clearly (something Rudd was never good at) and took criticism with good grace.

      Let’s not confuse the selection of questions with her responses.

      Reply

    • Dash says:

      08:36am | 10/08/10

      I was impressed by Gillard’s performance last night. But something tells me it was just that, a performance. At one stage she said Australians should judge her on her promises! I couldn’t believe that. Look at the promises from 07 that were not delivered. Grocery choice, fuelwatch, more affordable housing, cheaper better childcare, 200+ childcare facilities, we wont touch the private health rebate (LIE), no compulsory uni union fees (LIE), I’m a fiscal conservative (then spend up bigger than any previous gov in our history). Then at one stage she said that the 1.5% temporary levy would be inflationary. What about the impact of the 3% increase in superannuation levy she’s looking to hit the corporate world with. That will be inflationary and in making labour more expensive, it will cost jobs. What about the impact of the ETS on power and utility prices, how inflationary will that be? What about the impact of the profits tax? Rather than judge Gillard on her promises, judge her on what she’s delivered in office. The rorting of the school halls program, the debacle of the pink batts scheme, the green loans shambles, the East Timor solution (which was announced as policy when it never existed), the rats in the ranks, the record levels of foreign debt, the $40.4billion defecit and the burnt surplus. Yes she sounds good, but then so did Kev in 07. Do people really have memories that are so short?

      Reply

    • Mark.J says:

      01:00pm | 10/08/10

      >Do people really have memories that are so short?

      Sadly, yes they really do. I have so little faith in the general voting public. They will be swayed by pretty, gushing Julia, just as they were fooled by silver-tongued KRudd. Both of which failed to deliver on key promises, botched up anything they put their hand to, and set us back at least a dozen years financially. And will do it again.
      People are generally selfish, short-sighted and have no care for the greater good. The sooner they put into place non-compulsory voting, the better.

    • Dash says:

      01:19pm | 10/08/10

      MarkJ, perhaps all we need is a “first past the post” system. Then the majority would rule and we’d get a LNP government this election!

    • Robert S McCormick says:

      08:38am | 10/08/10

      Paul Colgan,
      I don’t think Ms Gillard was “prime ministerial” which is a pity because the Q&A Forum could have been the perfect stage for her to shine. Tony Jones tried to get her to answer the sticky questions which, rather than answering openly & honestly, she simply refused even to address. This was the most stage-managed, insincere program Q&A have so far put on. There were, unlike all the other Q&As; almost no questions asked as a result of Tony picking out someone with their hands up to ask a question or make a comment. Why?
      I, as a ‘swinging voter’ since the implosion of the Democrats was looking forward to a really open, honest, straightforward question & ANSWER session from Julia Gillard. Unfortunately what we got was a party-politicial- controlled gabfest. This was not Tony’s fault for I think he did his best.
      I look forward to watching the Tony Abbott Q&A program.
      As “Harriet” says above he may have been all ‘Ahhhh-Ummmm-Uhhhh’ but has anyone else noticed how he has managed to address that speech problem during the last couple of weeks? Maybe he has been seeing a speech therapist for having watched his Policy Launch on TV he was crisp & clear with nary an ‘Ahhhh-Ummmmm-Uhhh’to be heard. If he keeps that performance up on Q&A and addresses the questions as we want all our politicians to do then he will leave Julia Gillard for dead. My only hope is that his appearance will not be the stage-managed farce Julia’s was.

      Reply

    • Lindy says:

      08:38am | 10/08/10

      WEll everybody, it appears that the media have had their fun by keeping us watching & reading their copious output of words over the election & have now decided who will win the election. Gillard is a rampant left wing red & her ambition is to educate our kids into also being rampant left wing reds in order to keep the unions alive & shore up the fututre for the Unionist’s party, Labor. They will take this country to the cleaners, yet again!

      Reply

    • Reg. says:

      09:28am | 10/08/10

      Rubbish Lindy. Communism has been discredited everywhere except in China where they have adopted a mix so broad that it survives in name only. Adapt Lindy, the rest of the world has, except the US Republicans and you of course.

      Ms Gillard is not rampant in anything, she is a moderate. It’s the Liberals and big business that will take this country to the cleaners.

      The mining companies for example. Pretense at propping up employment as a front for minimizing any restriction on their operations. Yet again ... it was the Labor Party that floated the dollar in 1984 and the right-wing that quite typically opposed it. As Churchill said of the Americans and might well be applied to the Australian Liberal Party, “You can count on the Americans (Liberals) to get it right, after having tried everything else.”  Remember the gigantic Liberal LAG in the Menzies era? It left Australia at least 20 years behind the rest of the world.

    • Dash says:

      10:26am | 10/08/10

      You are wrong yet again Reg. Gillard was a member of the Socialist Forum right up until 2002. She lied to the people about only being a member to the age of 22! The float of the dollar was a recommendation of the Campbell report. That report was commissioned by John Howard when he was treasurer in the Fraser Government. So you are wrong to suggest the LNP opposed it. Whitlam did more damage to Australia than Menzies! He was so popular and progressive he got smashed by the people in Dec 1975 (91 seats to 36) and rejected again in 1977. Why is it, Labor people always rubbish the two most prosperous times in the nations history - Menzies and Howard and try to re-write history over the worst two eara - Whitlam and Rudd?? Is it because it highlights the fact that Labor deliver the bad times? As for employment, if the mining tax reduces margins as Gillard basically said last night, then investment will go overseas and jobs will be lost. The 3% superannuation increase will also increase costs to business, lead to job losses and is inflationary. I can recommend a few good economics texts if you like Reg. It’s never too late to learn.

    • BBB says:

      05:31pm | 10/08/10

      Dash -  Fraser and Howard did not act on the report they received in respect of floating the dollar.  That task fell to Hawke and Keating.  In terms of rubbishing, judging an era should be referenced on more than just prosperity.  Likewise the prosperity you refer to did not just flourish in a vacuum.  There is good and bad in governments of all persuasions.  For example, while you refer to Whitlam and certainly there was considerable economic mismanagement which was ultimately reflected in an electoral defeat in 1975, we do benefit from the Medicare system (or a forerunning of it) or the consumer protection legislation, both of which were instituted under Whitlam.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, your analysis suffers from being both unsophisticated and biased.  In saying this, I’m not a fan of either side of politics, but you really need to take the blinkers off before you hit submit.

    • Jason says:

      08:38am | 10/08/10

      Hey Joe!... Gillard didn’t NEED to   “admit”  that :-  ” ..... admit she thinks those of faith are insane.”  It goes without saying.

      Reply

    • kc says:

      08:40am | 10/08/10

      Definitely did well… means ditto to me though because why would I ever consider electing a party who have a complete disregard for the voice of the Australian people and only care about power and corrupt personal gain.

      Reply

    • Marion Hosking OAM says:

      09:03am | 10/08/10

      Julia was good! I dont remember any PM apart from those who once stood on street corners putting themselves so much ‘out there’. i thought her brave. The Libs are scared hence the forgoing barrage. Thank goodness for a moment I thought we may go back to Howard and the fifties. Julia’s perofrmance raised my hopes again for a government with a ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ philosophy.

    • Johnno says:

      09:40am | 10/08/10

      You won’t be voting for the Liberals then?

    • DavidR says:

      08:41am | 10/08/10

      I thought she did well. Maybe politicians could give more direct answers or be more progressive if the electorate could handle it. A lot of Australians are very conservative and do little or no genuine thinking about issues at all, just seem to run on some emotional level. JG must have been good last night,there’s a lot of cheesed off people here.

      Reply

    • Victor H Pigott says:

      08:42am | 10/08/10

      Gillard is fighting for her political life.  Like so many smooth tongued lawyers she is very apt at changing her tactics according to the circumstances. While I completely agree with her remarks as to her “differences” in lifestyle to John Howard or any other politician for that matter, this is not the case with her political preferences.  Despite her silver tongue utterances, Julia Gillard is first and foremost an atheist and a Socialist which to my mind is of such a lethal combination that it can only have dire consequences for Australia’s future. One only has to look to the Equality Act passed by the Labor Party in the United Kingdom to know what we can expect here.  Another example is the mess that Labor has made in NSW after 16 years of misrule in which the common law doctrine of natural justice has been severely diminished and in some cases removed.  Two recent High Court decisions (December 2009 and January 2010) struck down sections of two NSW Acts as unconstitutional, in one case based on a denial of natural justice and an abuse of the judicial function. The so-called “Bikie” legislation is currently being challenged in the High Court from two labor States, SA and NSW. Are we going to see further erosion of the common law by the English hating Irish Socialist Federal Labor Party?  For example, is the revisionism evident in the National History curriculum an example of what Gillard calls “Education Revolution”?  Her bonus rewards for teacher skills is divisive and smacks of government paternalism.  We need to look closely at her policies and consider carefully the erosion of common law safeguards that has already occurred in the Socialist run States.  Remember, socialism does not respect individuality, it is about collectivism and class.  Think carefully about your vote.

      Reply

    • Sally says:

      08:44am | 10/08/10

      I think Julia was great on Q and A. She was asked some tough questions and because she is intelligent and an excellent speaker she was able to answer them withou the ‘ums’ and ‘ers’ like the Tony Abbott. 
      Does it really matter that she doesn’t have kids and is not married? Its not the the 1950’s, there are plenty of people in Australia who live in de facto relationships, have no kids and don’t believe in god!

      Reply

    • Your name:BobM says:

      05:23pm | 10/08/10

      And Sally, although inconvenient for you, there are also many people who are married, do have children and who may believe in god - and they vote too!

    • Alan says:

      08:44am | 10/08/10

      Softest interview program I’ve seen. Still no substance from Gillard. What does she REALLY stand for, beyond sound bites?

      Reply

    • alG says:

      08:46am | 10/08/10

      OH Yeah she really got pushed to the limits, what a joke. And of course the Journo of this story gives her a boot as always, predictable labor DH

      Reply

    • Kevin Rennie says:

      08:48am | 10/08/10

      I was staggered to hear ABC Radio National’s AM program this morning. It was politics-as-entertainment at its worst. Its coverage of Julia Gillard’s appearance on Q&A was dismal.

      They mentioned all the non-core aspects: her marital/childless/atheist status, the ranga, the former Labor leader’s behaviour, her voice. Anything but policy!

      AM seems to have an identity crisis. Is it hard hitting journalism or a lifestyle program.

      More at: AM Fails PM’s Q&A
      http://bit.ly/bJcWb1

      Reply

    • kp says:

      08:50am | 10/08/10

      I watched it Paul, and I wouldn’t exactly say she showed any Prime Ministership qualities.  She was rather lame actually !!!  The questions were hardly tough questions.  I think Tony is certainly not “immature”.  He is very much a statesman and I for one like many people of Australia would love to see him take the top job.  This is your opinion only Paul !

      Reply

    • Gerard says:

      09:18pm | 10/08/10

      I can’t agree with your claim that she didn’t show Prime Ministerial qualities. She spent an hour talking herself up, dodging questions, pretending to be interested in people’s concerns and lying to the public. In my experience, that is exactly how you’d expect a prime minister to act.

    • Brendon says:

      08:51am | 10/08/10

      QandA should have been titled SQandW. Soft Questions and Waffle were what the viewers were treated to last night.  Bring back the panel and let these leading politicians answer some real questions.

      Reply

    • Chris McKay says:

      08:52am | 10/08/10

      Slam dunk? Command of a range of policy? The twitter comments at the bottom of the screen told a different story. I, like most others watching it seems, thought she did the usual duck and weave she is so adept at. All she did is reiterate the question and validate the interviewer. She blew smoke up everyone’s arse. Her sneer/grin makes me sick. My 4 year old could have asked more probing questions. But it was the ABC. Don’t want to upset the boss do we?

      Reply

    • kp says:

      08:54am | 10/08/10

      Unfortunately I have to agree with Lindy.  It will be 3 more years of Australia taken to the cleaners, yet again !!!  The media are just so smitten with their princess Gillard it is sickening.  She is hopeless.  There is nothing as voters we can do because most voters are not the sharpest tools in the shed and are easily brain washed by the all so powerful media !!!!!!!!  Ho hum !!

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      05:36pm | 10/08/10

      Holy Scweinhund kp, it didn’t take you much effort to elevate Ms Gillard to princess, I don’t think she’d appreciate the gesture though. It must be painfully galling to know you’re a sharp tool yet still had Liberalism inculcated into your brain. Maybe it came in your genes.

    • MikeL says:

      08:56am | 10/08/10

      Patronising, patronising, patronising. “Thankyou for asking that question”, “that’s a good question”, “I’m glad you asked that question”, “I understand where your coming from”, “I understand your concern”, “I share your concern” and on and on she went patronising EVERY questioner. Is this what you call not scripted responses? Didn’t look very natural to me, do most people answer questions like that? NO. Yes she piulled of her scripted approach beautifully!

      Reply

    • umrum says:

      05:02pm | 10/08/10

      What do you want her to say?

      “stuff you for asking that question”.

      Please

    • Reg says:

      07:10am | 11/08/10

      It’s called pitch, pause and pace MikeL. Succinctly, timing.

      Time for the listener to stop scratching his balls or whatever and absorb what the question is. Otherwise they come to half way through the answer in a complete and utter tizz wondering wtf she or he is on about. You know, all a part of the typical seven second attention span that everyone says they don’t have.

      If you’re old enough you may recall how, without microphones, lung powered speakers had to time their words to suit the reverberation period of the house. Otherwise no-one bothered listening.

    • Tim from Gippsland says:

      08:57am | 10/08/10

      Very impressive intelligent and natural and will make a fantastic prime minister. But next week will be more telling Abbott unscripted and not staged managed as to what to say, should give Australians a true insight into the false and phony Tony.

      Reply

    • K says:

      08:58am | 10/08/10

      I’m sick of Joolia fake or otherwise telling me that what she does or did is for the good of the Australian people. That’s arrogant! NEWSFLASH! You weren’t elected by the Australian people to make those decisions!!!!
      She did not impress me last night at all. She is a manipulative backstabbing dictator. It’s taken me awhile to understand how she seems to appeal to some, well she basically uses enough of most people’s key words to appear as if she is talking to you personally. See, hear, think and feel spread throughout everything she says as opposed to each of us who would use one or two. She is not using her preference in her discussions but carefully crafted sentances designed to make us think she gives a shit, therfore still fake Julia.
      Her policies (al you hear isl I, I, I, I) well what is available are ill thought out and will lead this country down the same path of insultation and school halls…

      Reply

    • Paula says:

      09:01am | 10/08/10

      A very polished and credible performance.  Very switched on.  Handled the curly questions with aplomb and a refreshing honesty.  Abbott will find her a hard act to follow.

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      11:34am | 10/08/10

      Your assessment is obviously correct Paula or all the Liberal fan-boyz would not be as frantic as they are today. smile

    • Dash says:

      12:42pm | 10/08/10

      Yes Paula Julia’s a great talker. And as has been stated above, she definitely put on a performance! Sounds a lot like 07 though doesn’t it. Grocery choice - oops, Fuelwatch - oops, 200+ childcare facilities - oops, more affordable housing - oops, cheaper better childcare - oops, we wont touch the private health tax rebate - oops, insulation scheme - oops, green loans - oops, East Timor Solution - oops, Profit tax backflip - oops, ETS backflip - oops, Peter Garrett - oops, the Copenhagen Conference (ha ha ha) - oops, Rats in the ranks - oops, fiscal conservatism - oops, record foreign debt - oops, $7.5b hole in the federal budget due to the profit tax backdown - oops, Tanner resignation in protest - oops, Faulkner resignation in protest - oops, Public ownership of hospitals by July 2009 - LIE - oops, Inflationary pressure of the 3% super increase - oops, Power prices up on the back of the ETS - oops etc etc! Actions speak louder than words and Labors actions over the last three years speak for themselves. How many promises from 07 were never delivered! Labor are hopeless, wasteful and keep racking up debt. When was the last surplus Labor budget?

    • Roja says:

      05:04pm | 10/08/10

      You are spot on Paula & Reg, thanks Dash for proving Reg’s point smile

    • Your name:John Casserly says:

      07:17pm | 10/08/10

      Your comment: Abbott will tell it as it is and does not need the questions in advance to prepare his answers Paula, watch, listen and Learn when Tony speaks.
      As for Reg- it is time to take your head out of the sand and put your welfare in the hands of Smart business and secure our future rather than want for the welfare State you shall end up in. How many generations of stand over unionism did you decend from

    • Reg says:

      08:38pm | 10/08/10

      I did that once Johnnie and Australian business lost me 60% of my retirement funds until I stepped in and told First State to FO.Maybe they’re not as Smart as you suppose.

      In all my fifty five years working in heavy and light industry, I have never seen a unionist stand over anyone. Far more often management standing over a unionist, but especially over a non-unionist. I can only think you are given to desperate exaggeration. Sure it will have happened just as the Liberal bully boys know which part of the body to apply the telephone directory to and who to pick on. 

      Perhaps you need to get out a bit Johnnie and stop believing your own bullshit.

    • Jane says:

      09:05am | 10/08/10

      She was in ADELAIDE, she keeps telling them she’s an Adelaide girl and they love her in SA! What do you expect from an Adelaide audience. And the tweets on the screen were so over the top about how wonderful she was doing they were making me feel nauseous. Giggle, giggle what a fun girl! Nothing like the grilling Rudd got and nothing like the grilling Abbott would get.

      Reply

    • Russell Cairns says:

      09:06am | 10/08/10

      You scratch my back Tony and I’ll scratch yours, and Julia should note, and be aware, the man KRUDD who scrapped work choices would be the best example of the most unfair dismissal to occur during the past 100 years.

      Reply

    • Anniebello says:

      06:39pm | 10/08/10

      I wonder if Kevin will take it to the ombudsman?? Just have to point out…workchoices is alive and well. Most of Fair Work Australia is actually workchoice policy. All Labor did was get rid of the most visible part aka workplace agreements because they stopped the unions from ‘negotiating on behalf of the workers’.

    • QANDA - The Next Julia Unrevealed. says:

      09:08am | 10/08/10

      The soft QANDA questions gave Gillard well rehearsed opportunity to further dissemble. Gillard side-stepped the Rudd question - as usual. 
      Her reply to the question on childlessness, deflected in suggesting that she is the first PM to know what it’s like to be a woman, was infuriatingly ridiculous.
      There’s heaps of women who’ve served as government Ministers, deputy Prime Minister and elected political figures.  They don’t justify not knowing what it is like to be a man!  She is not the first woman to occupy high office, but she is the first Australian woman to decapitate a serving PM, cause international embarrassment and deliver managerial incompetence to an inexcusable level. 
      Her wild idea that school truants would be banned from sport under her “management”  indicates a complete lack of understanding about children and adolescents in various circumstances and stages in their development. 

      Her over-kill on child policy is a deceptive ploy - disproportionate campaign time in schools protects her from deeper policy questioning.
      Teachers have related examples of kids mercilessly bullied when local peers from neighbouring schools learn through the My School website of someone else’s lower school test ratings.
      Professional teachers did their very best to resist her, citing the dangers of that website, but she refused to hear.
      I’ve worked with women most of my life.  This one is too smart by half. Australia would find that the next Julia, should her controlling ambitions be realised, would go the same way as Rudd - a regrettable political symbol of disunity and public embarrassment.

      Reply

    • Magpieboy says:

      11:27pm | 10/08/10

      “First PM to know what it’s like to be a woman.” Obviously Gillard has forgotten that Margaret Thatcher, Benizir Bhutto and Helen Clarke were all women also, and they were all women.

    • Jed says:

      09:13am | 10/08/10

      All about CREDIBILITY & was on display, Julia HAS it!
      Lib apologists need to admit it & ease up on personal attacks

      Ps males sending blogs under female psuedonyms, attacking her, it’s okay, you can come out of the closet

      Reply

    • Gerard says:

      09:32pm | 10/08/10

      Why do you assume that anyone attacking this arrogant, power-obsessed opportunist supports the Liberal Party? Has it not occurred to you that some of us want ‘representatives’ that represent the interests of their constituents rather than those of a party? Or do you believe that political parties should be supported like football teams, irrespective of performance?

    • Reg says:

      08:33am | 11/08/10

      Gerard, as much as we may all like to think of a Democratic government with everyone an independent, it is a failing of Democracy that it will not work. 

      People collude and they will do it in private or in public. They do it in public by declaring their Political affiliations while secretly wearing their reservations.

      If you choose to stand separated from the functional need of government, it is vital that you declare your status so that the voters can forget you and get on with the real task of assessing for whom they wish to vote.  It is therefore reasonable, that lacking you declaration to the contrary, you should find yourself classified as one or the other, governed by what you write or say. 

      The one saving grace of our political system is that each elected member swears an oath to the Australian people first, NOT to his party. 

      It is unfortunate there is not some means by which the electorate could enforce this over-riding oath to the people, because it seems most oath takers don’t take them seriously anyway. Thus also dismantling any complaints of religious dissociation by non-aligned parliamentarians.

    • Patrick says:

      09:14am | 10/08/10

      We watched the ‘real’ Julia with smiles on our dials. She is way ahead in demonstrable intellect, getting to and making her points…and just plain commonsense. ‘Ahhhhhhhhhh, well, ahhh’ Tony will have a tough time enunciating a rational answer under scrutiny nest week. Go Julia!

      Reply

    • The Badger says:

      09:16am | 10/08/10

      Brilliant performance by the person who will soon be the first elected prime minister of Australia.

      The vitriol and bile spewed forth by the usual conservative crew on this site are testament to the fact that they know they have been dealt a double blow to their chances.

      The first is the impression undecided voters will take from her intelligence, humour and obvious knowledge across the issues.

      The second is the um, errr, ahh, um (where did I put my notes) lackluster performance Abbott is sure to follow up with.

      Reply

    • Ben says:

      09:24am | 10/08/10

      I agree with many - a lot of the question asked were irrelevant and the environment was obviously controlled. When actually asked a decent question, Julia spoke well but at the end of it I had to remind myself of the question and often realised she hadn’t answered it at all.

      Question - “How have you learnt from the mistakes of the insulation scheme and the school building costing blowout?”
      Answer - “Yes, 3% of the schools were not happy with how it has been rolled out, and yes, the vultures got a hold of the insulation scheme, but we had to roll these out to avoid a recession”
      to me, it was the same old damage limitation, blame shifting and by the response, the government did not learn a thing.

      Reply

    • JJ From Perth says:

      09:29am | 10/08/10

      In the end the media will determine who wins this election and there is no doubt that nine, seven and sky are all slanted towards labor.
      Why are none of the channels reporting on the new boat arrivalls - the boats have not stopped, the reason is simple it puts labor ion a bad light.
      Time for a professional unbiased media.

      Reply

    • GC says:

      09:37am | 10/08/10

      JJ, Are you serious ?... lets highlight something that accounts for about 2% of total immigration and turn it into the root cause of all our problems.
      I doubt you would recognise unbiased media.

    • Reg says:

      09:41am | 10/08/10

      So you think the competition from other shock jocks is too much for Rupert to consider setting up his own Australian “fair and balanced”  Fox News? Have you seen how fair and BALANCED that channel is? Perhaps you weren’t watching or listening to everything that has been reported.

    • HermanT says:

      11:38am | 10/08/10

      I have watched Fox News Reg and I watch ABC news now. Makes you wonder why you pay!!

    • Marvin H says:

      11:57am | 10/08/10

      try watching Paul Murray Live on Sky if you want bias. I don’t even bother with Fox now. Have no idea why I continue to pay but that may stop soon

    • gs says:

      09:33am | 10/08/10

      Julia is a smooth performer, but why can’t people, especially women, see through the nurtured fake public persona, body language actions of stroking, constant touching, trust you hand motions, “good question”  or “I agree” in response to questions.  It would be interesting to go back a few years and watch TV footage of Julia’s style and compare.

      Reply

    • Dick j says:

      10:31am | 10/08/10

      Gillard is big on education it seems. Can someone ask her if she is re elected will the Federal Government continue to fund private independant schools?

      Has she released a policy on this?

      Reply

    • Ronnie C says:

      10:32am | 10/08/10

      I reckon if I said something along the lines of what Julia Gillard said of her “not understanding what it’s like to be a” Man, people would think that I am sexist. It’s almost like getting into a discussion / disagreement with a female work colleague and finishing it with “I’m the Man… and you couldn’t possibly make decisions as well as myself cause I’m a Man you wouldn’t understand how to run this company cause you can’t possibly understand cause I’m a Man who is a father… Have you ever been a father?”

      Please Gillard, get over yourself cause it’s pretty disgusting on using the whole first Female PM…
      And who cares if she’s single, married, divorced… Her personal life is her own and her policies and promises are the publics.

      Also seems to me there was no real grilling questions on this show. Let’s see the questions they throw at Abbott to see if this show is LABOR / LIBERAL biased.

      Reply

    • SF says:

      10:40am | 10/08/10

      It’s interesting to see people saying Abbott will get harder questions and Gillard gets off easy.  The fact is that Abbott makes his interviews seem tougher because he’s a terrible performer when he’s not scripted and often fumbles through his answers – exactly the sort of representation this country needs on the international stage.

      We don’t need Abbott to appear on TV for the rest of the campaign anyway because we know that all he’ll talk about is how the Libs will (in whatever order takes his fancy):

      1. Stop the boats - a scare campaign the Libs often wheel out whenever they need a boost in the polls.  Why is it that we always believe this rubbish?  Let’s not forget that boat people represent a small percentage of the refugees that enter our country and in turn refugees represent only a small percentage of total immigration.

      2. Pay back the debt - even though yesterday Hockey admitted the Libs would have also racked up debt during the GFC

      3. Stop new taxes – how is the paid parental leave scheme going to be funded again?  Oh that’s right, increased taxes on companies… or was that a levy?  He also wants to go back to the Henry Tax Review… now where did that mining tax come from in the first place?

      4. Stop the waste – so the Labor party rushed out a couple of schemes to keep the economy ticking over and provide much needed school infrastructure and thought the contractors that performed the work would be responsible, ethical and professional and not try to rip off the government or cut corners… okay so maybe the Labor party did stuff up there by trusting the Australian people a little too much… how dare they? 

      Given that even some of Abbott’s former Liberal colleagues are saying he doesn’t have what it takes to manage the economy, why should we believe him when he tells us he can?  If I told you I can fly a plane and would be happy to fly you overseas, only to have my friends and colleagues tell you I can’t actually fly a plane, would you get in the plane?

      Reply

    • Geoff says:

      10:44am | 10/08/10

      I agree with the vast majority of people here.  Julia was given a rails run, easy questions, some profoundly inane.  Her first answer set the tone, she never even answered the question.  I sent in 10 questions a few days ago…  Not one got asked.  I saw lots of others that deserved to be answered on the site…  none of them showed up either.
      I also think Abbott will cop a battering compared to this, Tony Jones, the ABC and the select audience will see to it.

      Reply

    • Your name:Patrick says:

      11:59am | 10/08/10

      Abbott will start his Q&A with the same warm and friendly soft question routine as Gillard had. Whe he begins failing to answer some of the more probing and analytical questions about 20 minutes in, watch out!
      We’ll begin again to see the ‘real’ Tony. Let’s see then how ‘Well…arghhhhhh…ah…’ will go with the ‘select’ audience. I can hardly wait.

    • neil says:

      02:59pm | 10/08/10

      POLITICAL bias is not always an easy thing to measure. But blogger Gavin Atkins, who writes for the Asian Correspondent website, has taken a novel approach in an attempt to discover whether the perceived left-wing slant of the ABC’s Lateline program actually exists or whether the claims of bias are just paranoid ramblings from the conservative side of the political divide.

      Atkins compared two recent interviews the show’s host Tony Jones conducted with opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey and Treasurer Wayne Swan, and recorded how many times the silver-haired journo interrupted the pollies and how much of the respective interviews were filled by Jones-speak. We will simply reproduce Atkins’s findings in their raw form.

      “As indicated by the ellipsis punctuation (. . .) appearing at the end of an unfinished sentence, Hockey was interrupted 20 times. As indicated by ellipsis punctuation (. . .) appearing at the end of an unfinished sentence, Swan was interrupted 0 times.

      From a 3482-word segment, 2027 words were spoken by Hockey and 1455 words by Jones, thus Jones took up 42 per cent of the words used in the Hockey interview.

      Out of a 2960-word segment, Swan spoke 2190 words, 870 words by Jones, thus Jones took up 29 per cent of the words in the Swan interview.”

    • Jason says:

      10:48am | 10/08/10

      It’s very sad that in a country of such successful and brilliant people - where we turn out brilliant sportspeople, actors, lawyers, pilots, businesspeople etc who go on to excel on a global level - we just can’t seem to find ANYONE who can step up and be a strong visionary leader with a connection to reality. 

      Gillard was smooth and controlled in a nicely sterilized environment, but like Abbott, she is certainly not an inspiring person.  Australia needs somebody who all of us can look to with confidence that they will balance all our needs and help us to work harder and smarter, and become a better country as a whole.

      Sadly, there is nothing like that available this time around.  This election will be decided by how many of us preferred the Howard years to the Rudd years.

      Reply

    • Ryan says:

      11:13am | 10/08/10

      “John Howard didn’t know what it was like to be a mother” holy cow I cannot believe that this level of stupid is running the country.. god help us! She is so incompetent she can’t even tell a persons sex.
      Here let me explain it for you Julia, John Howard is a MAN which makes him male which makes him a FATHER, of three children actually.
      You on the other hand are FEMALE which if you weren’t deliberately barren would make you a MOTHER.
      Unbelievable!

      Reply

    • Stevie for PM says:

      11:22am | 10/08/10

      The interview was a joke and Tony has loss all credibility? Where were the tough questions man? Gillard the slick has pulled one over the Australian people again.

      Reply

    • Sean says:

      11:22am | 10/08/10

      It appears that Labor politicians have now mastered the art of completely evading a question, more over the media have gotten to the point where they dont ask the relative questions… here’s just one point of many: there are tens of thousands of medium and small business’s who are herniating under this governments policies… cash flows are down by up to 50%, forward orders are non existent and many took on the governments advice and spent on capital items only to find they now cant afford them. Moreover many are in deep trouble with out being able to pay specialist services such as accounting and legal bills… 4 in ten are not meeting GST payments.  Why did the government throw so much money so fast at a stimulus when holding back for now would have been so much better and why did all the money go the things like TV’s, pokies and booze? It appears the government supports large business like banks, coles, woolies and BHP and RIO but no one else… how can they be called the peoples government?

      Reply

    • Steve says:

      11:27am | 10/08/10

      See how she handles questions from someone like Kerry O’Brien when he’s in the mood for really grilling someone. It’s all very well to smile and anser touchy feely questions but I she can answer real hard questions about policies and past failures, then I might be impressed.

      Reply

    • Brenton says:

      11:40am | 10/08/10

      An honest and rational response to all questions posed, not the sensationalist, fear mongering, bigoted, “trust us without the detail”, populist trash served up by Abbott and Co.
      Statesmanlike and dignified - she’s who we need in charge, not the “underbelly like” characters of the coalition.

      Reply

    • Brett says:

      11:40am | 10/08/10

      Whether it was a deception or not many of Julia’s responses were quite witty and comunicated considerable warmth. Wit and warmth is not something we will see from Abbot hence the Liberal Partys attempt to minimise his exposure to the media.

      Admittedly, Julia was asked a lot of dubious questions on Q&A about her appearance, personal beliefs etc but this is a reflection of the broad media coverage so far. The media tends to avoids scrutinising policy in detail and instead focuses on short, sharp messages that evoke an emotional response, usually in the negative.

      I don’t think people on this forum can complain too much about Julia being given a soft run on Q&A as coverage of her by the Commercial Media has been brutal. This brutality is reflected on forums like this, which like talk back radio, often reflects a decidely right wing bias in the audience.

      Reply

    • Botfly says:

      11:43am | 10/08/10

      I thought Julia did ok she answered well and with humor and in that job I think you would need all your laughter reserves

      Reply

    • David Sanderson says:

      11:43am | 10/08/10

      Gillard’s performance on Q and A was brilliant.

      She completely held a partly hostile audience. A familiar sound on that program, when politicians appear on it, is hostile laughter. It didn’t happen once last night.

      Climate change was a definite weak point but, overall, an outstanding performance from a woman who has a genius for smooth, warm and persuasive political communication.

      The few grabs that have been taken from the program and highlighted do not convey the way Gillard strongly held her audience for an hour - she was authoritative, clear and knowledgable but not at all overbearing or hard-edged. Her mastery of television, in terms of getting her message and personality across, has no political equal.

      Reply

    • Mitch says:

      11:58am | 10/08/10

      “we just can’t seem to find ANYONE who can step up and be a strong visionary leader with a connection to reality. ”

      It;s because we the electorate wont let them. Rudd and co did a tremendous job avoiding the recession then next minute they are terrible wasters blah blah blah. Our debt levels are minute in comparison with other countries of similar sized economies. Way too much scare mongering and Labor’s response has been terrible. Time for a new PR manager at the Labor Party. Hockey and Abbott wont cost any of their promises and they have so far pledged to spend a lot more than Labor yet this is never brought up. According to “fat joe” Labor are just wasting money yet he is pledging spending even more money than them but refuses to cost it.

      Reply

    • arealist says:

      11:59am | 10/08/10

      For Gods sake someone talk Costello into coming back! This is a boring and futile 2 horse race between 2 no bodies with nothing to offer and no ability to really do anything.

      Reply

    • Green Lover says:

      12:44pm | 10/08/10

      Enter Bob Brown

    • Reg says:

      05:46pm | 10/08/10

      You first.

    • Gary Cox says:

      12:09pm | 10/08/10

      Rubbish. Tony Jones was a soft touch and didn’t challenge her at all, he always is with Labor politicians, why do you think Q & A is always stacked with more Left leaners than Right?

      On another matter, I wish Gillard and co would stop harping on about Abbott’s lack of interest and/or competence in Economics. Do they know that he has a degree in Economics? Got to know more about it than an ex trade union lawyer.

      Reply

    • Kevin Rennie says:

      01:51pm | 10/08/10

      I’d have Greg Combet any day before Tony Abbott. He’d be my Finance Minister. Andrew Robb and Barnaby Joyce aren’t in the same league. Most of the rabbits who got us into the GFC have Economics degrees.

    • Geoff says:

      12:14pm | 10/08/10

      Brett, Brenton…  are you card caryying members of the ALP?  kevin, the worst OM I can remember.  The current government the most incompetent many of us can remember and provably so; grocerywatch, fuelwatch, insulation debacle,  solar rebate overrun, green-loans debacle, monster immigration figures, no border protection - we escort boat-people to Australia,  Kevin spent most of his time hob-nobbing with the UN around the world, not to mention his more than apparent character flaws, ETS debacle,  record debt and deficit yet again courtesy of Labor, BER rorts, overspend, over-stimulus, computers for every child…  oops,  tax reform lol,  lies, deceit, hypocrisy…  need I say more?  The list goes on and on and on…  need I say more?

      Reply

    • Brenton says:

      04:20pm | 10/08/10

      We are an economic miracle compared to the rest of the industrialised nations, surviving a GFC of the magnitude we had without recession.  Most of Labor’s ideas were well founded but were either blocked by a coalition unwilling to accept the mandate of The Australian people or abused by the private sector who saw a cash cow rather than a plan to save the nation’s economy and jobs.  There’s so much negative reporting despite much success.
      As for monster immigration, no border protection, record debt etc - do your research rather than echo the bigoted, baseless spin being spewed out by the mad monk and his cronies.

    • kosmiester says:

      12:31pm | 10/08/10

      It has dawn on me over the last few years that conservative voters much like their politicians are a narrow minded, self absorbed lot, who are nothing more than sore losers.  During the last 3 years I saw very little in the opposition to suggest otherwise. They opposed just about every major initiative the govt put forward that was mandated by them winning the 07 election. Three leaders in 3 years shows how unstable this party is. Their much heralded Costello exposed as a sook and retiring from politics. He obviously didn’t have the metal to seize the moment and now they are left with scraping the barrel - Abbott, Hockey, Robb and Joyce.
      I can understand conservative voters barracking for their team, but give us a break. I would rather have fake Julia than these 4 clowns running the country. But then again they are just a reflection of who you are or aspire to be like.

      Reply

    • bemused says:

      12:41pm | 10/08/10

      Abbott tragics are panicking. Will he perform as well or will be put his foot in it or just rabbit on about Labor without giving any indication of what he would do for the country? Can’t wait for next week. Julia’s brilliant performance has put Abbott on notice and I doubt he’ll make the grade. Liberal voters seem to agree which is why they’re crying foul before he has even appeared - starting the excuses already. What a hoot.

      Reply

    • Richard says:

      01:30pm | 10/08/10

      As a self-confessed “Abbott tragic”, let me tell you that I am not panicking at all. My prediction is the Abbott is given a much more torrid time by the Tony and the audience, but still comes across as credible and composed. At the end commentators will say that he was not as personable or “flirty” as Gillard was, but he had gravitas and a real message, not just a fluffy ball of charismatic, cutesy waffle like Gillard had last night.

    • Rose Reid says:

      12:45pm | 10/08/10

      Julia answered none of the hard questions and on mental health in McKay she was dishonest - we had just watched an ABC special on the mental health problem where we were told that doctors had even spoken to the Minister about the very dangerous situation for all the young people in McKay with mental health problems.

      Many young people with mental problems were dying with no assistance and one of the local GP’s said they had to wait up top 6 monthsd to get assistance with their mental health problems.

      Julia said it was not a good situation but they were working on it. This is a complete lie.

      What has the government done with the $300M they just borrowed from Medicare - what is this money being used for?

      Julia has told Australia she has fixed the miners tax - well she has not

      Will any responsibile journalist tie Julia down to get answers - why do we just let Labour prance around and not answer the hard questions?

      Basically they are being dishonest !!

      WILL SOME ONE GET ANSWERS PLEASE!!

      Reply

    • Paula says:

      04:55pm | 10/08/10

      Rose the reason there are so many youth suffering mental health problems is because in the majority of cases it is self-inflicted by substance abuse.  Do you really think they deserve the highest medical priority ?

    • Ray says:

      01:00pm | 10/08/10

      Kevin Rudd often was criticised for his continual spin. Disturbingly, Julia displayed that she is able to out-do Kevin in that respect.

      Secondly, Julia’s PR people overlooked at least one of Julia’s annoying characteristics, namely, the cackling hen laugh.

      Thirdly, while Julia appears to have discarded her pseudo-DJs pattern coat, she surely could do better than choose hard tramline stripe coats.

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      09:03pm | 10/08/10

      My, what a sensitive assessment with gay overtones.

      Now that you mention it I don’t think I’ve ever heard a politician laugh. I’d have thought that having a well developed sense of humour would be first priority for all of them.  I remember seeing Malcolm scared and upset but never laughing. This could be ground-breaking. Bob Hawke probably, not gawfawingly though.

      So I guess the perception is that laughing politicians are not taking their job seriously. Can we alter that please?

    • Paul says:

      01:01pm | 10/08/10

      I agree that Julia can speak well.  She uses lots of words, laughter and soothing tones and they lull concerns beautifully.  The problem is that they do not mean anything.  She has no answers just evasions and it is annoying beyond words.  I wish people would analyse what she says not how she says it.

      Reply

    • Jimbo says:

      01:54pm | 10/08/10

      Nice to see the excuses coming out for Tony Abbott even before he appears on Q&A.  Whats the bet he spends most of the time rambling on about Labor.
      Cant wait!

      Reply

    • jim says:

      02:15pm | 10/08/10

      I fell asleep… i need real policies.

      She makes Tony Abbott look good.

      Reply

    • Democrat says:

      02:19pm | 10/08/10

      Are any Liberal staffers actually working on the campaign today or are they all writing commentary on Gillard’s performance on Q&A?  There has been a lot of discussion - supermarket, doctor’s surgery, coffee shop (my experiences today) - about her effort last night and it has all been positive until I read the comments here.  I think the Abbott and the Coalition are now showing their poor campaign policies - up until now masked by Labor’s ineptitude - and the momentum has swung to Labor. Gillard is hitting her stride and from hereon in she will storm home for a comfortable win.  The responses she gave on faith and her unmarried status were excellent for anybody who seeks to live in a secular and tolerant society.

      Reply

    • kango says:

      02:34pm | 10/08/10

      A down to earth, sensible and warm peformance by the PM - she is head and shoulders above all the rest.  Can’t wait for Abbott’s appearance next week.

      Reply

    • Mike says:

      02:38pm | 10/08/10

      She was great but I would have liked more commitment to tax reforms not that she threw it out of the ring. A fine example of Welsh blood - Cymru Am Byth

      Reply

    • neil says:

      02:41pm | 10/08/10

      You can tell when she gets a question that she either doesn’t want to or can’t answer, she starts with:

      “That’s a very good question and I thank you for asking it”.

      She then gives some not particularly relavent background relating to what Labor has done on the topic, then quickly turns it into an attack on Tony Abbott without answering the question, hoping by now we have forgotten what the question actually was.

      Reply

    • Aristotle says:

      03:17pm | 10/08/10

      Hmm, lots of sour grapes today from the Liberal lovers. Julia won the election with her polished performance last night, as the betting plunge today on Labor winning the election shows. She’ll pick up another 1% swing when Abbott has to um, er, ah his way through his appearance on Q&A. It’ll be a miracle if he gets through it without at least one gaffe.

      Reply

    • Gregg says:

      03:47pm | 10/08/10

      Colgo,
      Seriously mate
      ” She looked prime ministerial. She was poised, witty, and showed a command of a range of policy. Importantly, Gillard steered clear of excessively negative attacks on Coalition leader Tony Abbott who, when he appears on the show next week, will need to change his tone from his campaign launch themes of assassination, toxicity, waste and immaturity. “

      Were you and I watching the same Q& A or the one I watched until it was just more of the same same game as many posts here have indicated.
      There were no real searching questions and answers more a campaign speech and yes she did talk negatively of Abbot on a number of occasions.

      No doubt Labor people will have loved the cool, charm and laughter at The Tool and does that not give a measure of the show if Julia was in her evasive element.

      You really have to wonder what hope this country has when such political bias is engineered by our mainstream media.
      If people are going to re-elect an incompetent government based on polish charm and wit, I suppose we’ll all have to most unfortunately live with continued poor performance and Pauls Banana Republic we’ll be closer to becoming.

      Reply

    • Ashley says:

      03:49pm | 10/08/10

      Julia is a stateswoman. Tony Abbott reminds me of a chimp.

      Reply

    • dead to me says:

      06:41pm | 10/08/10

      Abbott is a statesman. Julia reminds me of Woody woodpecker smile

    • preciouspress says:

      04:00pm | 10/08/10

      You can easily pick the bloggers raised on a diet prepared by the Murdoch press and the talk-back demagogues. They see Julia Gillard perform well and accuse the ABC of bias in the selection of the audience and questions. Paranoia rules as they then anticipate Abbott’s audience will be stacked with lefties who will ask questions more difficult to answer. It is entirely appropriate that the candidate they support is over-trained buffoon.

      Reply

    • Darcy says:

      04:14pm | 10/08/10

      Hope Tony Jones keeps Abbott in check next week and makes him answer the questions posed.  It will not go down well if he uses this forum to constantly attack Labor.  It will only serve to diminish his already fragile credibility.  Also the show should be extended to allow for all the umhs and aahs he will no doubt utter.

      Reply

    • Rae says:

      05:20pm | 10/08/10

      Darcy get over yourself
      Gillard and Government are an absolute disgrace, Gillard had all of the questions prior to last nights Q&A!
      Meanwhile farmers are losing Water Rights, Immigration is a National disgrace ie. Economic Refugees the waste of money and the cost for the
      Installation, BER ..... you utter fool you will be paying for it.  That is if you go to work!!!

    • John Casserly says:

      07:29pm | 10/08/10

      I am yet to hear Julia answer a direct question but I notice that like a boxer hurt she smiles at all the hard questions and pretends to fend them.

    • Geoff says:

      05:25pm | 10/08/10

      good grief…  one appearance on a tv show and that wins the election.  that is sad.
      Sorry labor voters, but you sound desperate, not those stating the obvious about the easy questions and non-answers etc.

      Reply

    • Drew(Darlinghurst) says:

      05:31pm | 10/08/10

      Tony Abbott and his extreme team are TOAST.

      Well Done Julia!!!

      Roll on th election date…I smell a Labor Victory…again.

      Reply

    • Stewart says:

      05:32pm | 10/08/10

      Good old Aunty ABC going to the rescue of Labour. I bet the selected audience for Tony will go for the jugular. Q&A used to be balanced but this was just free kick after free kick for real Julia.

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      07:41am | 11/08/10

      Oh poor Stewart.

      So sad that you have such low expectations of Tony. You’ve written him off, even before he gets his opportunity to shower the electorate with fire and brimstone from our ABC lectern.

      Chin up Stewart, he may yet surprise us.

    • Tezza says:

      06:09pm | 10/08/10

      Last night it seemed to me, mostly, like Julia preaching to the converted. Even the ones who sounded like they were a bit tetchy with her seemed to be coming at her from the left rather than the middle or, god forbid, the right. Julia’s act wears very thin on me these days. When she was a red-hot young lawyer (before politics) I hear that she was as sharp as a tack, and then when I first became aware of her in politics (say about ten years ago) she impressed me with her intelligence. However these days she has perfected this Forrest Gump act where she pretends to be a hay-seed, laughs at every question and serves up another platitudinous answer. Life is just a box of chocolates isn’t it Julia, and all yours are soft-centred. Actually, i could only take fifteen minutes of Q. and A before I switched over to watch Paul Murray on Sky News interviewing Mark Latham. Much more interesting.

      Reply

    • Stewart Henstock says:

      06:33pm | 10/08/10

      Yes but Julia is not paid to be a stand up comic she’s paid to run the country,which unfortunately for us voters she’s doing a lousy job.
      Under her the Labor Gov has placed us in considerable amount of debt which will take years to repay.Add the wasted millions on pink batts and the Ber and we have sections of our community missing out on critically needed funds.
      Why is it that pensioners never have enough or there aren’t enough doctors or beds.It’s because of the wasted millions by the Labor Gov.By the time the Liberals get in it they’re facing massive debt and don’t have the resources to implement the necessary policies.
      Finally when they do get a surplus they’re voted out and the cycle starts again.

      Reply

    • Michael says:

      07:08pm | 10/08/10

      Lots of misery-guts in this comment stream.  I think there’s more than a few disgruntled Tories who are slowly realising their man Tony is nothing compared to JG.

      Reply

    • Coalition Against Whingeing Liberals says:

      09:53pm | 10/08/10

      Great to see that the Liberals are already panicking following that brilliant effort by prime minister Gillard last night.  In total contrast to Abbotts pathetic effort in trying to answer Kerry O’Brians questions on the 7:30 Report tonight.  He showed Abbott up as the complete fool that he is. No substance , no vision except to take Australia back to the 1950’s.
      Well done Julia you were outstanding on Q&A last night! I can’t wait to see umm, err, agghhh Mr Rabbit stuff it up next week.

      Reply

    • Quintin says:

      09:56pm | 10/08/10

      you know what im sick of? im sick of labour claiming economic credibility and how they skillfully avoided the effects of the GFC when the only reason we faired better than anyone else in the world was because of years of sound economic management by the liberals. anyone who believes the labour diatribe about this is just naive or ignorant

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      07:56am | 11/08/10

      Dream on Quintin.

      First you need to hear about the Liberal scare tactics described by Bernie Fraser as one of the most deceptive provocations ever inflicted on the electorate.

      Then you need to consider the Liberal fire-sale of taxpayer owed assets. Then the gigantic taxation rates levied by the Howard government. Then the 10% GST culminating in John Howard sitting, Buddha like, on the heap of accrued assets while infrastructure rusted away.

      Just as well your Johnnie never had a plan for spending these assets but you can bet it was more good luck than good management.

      Conservatives are like that.

    • Youdy beaudy says:

      05:34pm | 11/08/10

      Well, when this election is finally over and thank god for that, we’ll have to put up with the post election bullshit filling our screens. God is anyone out there apart from me sick of the constant bullshit that goes on.

      For Christs sake, if you don’t like liberal don’t vote for them and if you don’t like labor don’t vote for them but don’t keep filling our lives with bullshit. Is their something interesting that you could write about without politics or some scandal in it.

      The fact of life for us all is that blokes like Rupert Murdock run Australia as his political opinion is promoted here and anywhere else his political leanings are expressed. He owns the world Media, big media baron, is that right. Without his Media Barony you wouldn’t give him a second look. But people like him feed the chooks the bullshit that they want to, so they can get some business out of it.

      Ultimately although seen as highly illegal to me he gets away with it and of course is arse is well licked by the vested interests to boot. I would think that Murdock and Bush jnr would have the cleanest asses in the world as they have had so many people up them.

      So for christ sake end this election. It can’t come quick enough for me i can tell you and I wish that Robert Smissen from Rural SA, Gods own Country would take his opinion an shove it up his pommie arse and head off back to Pommie Land and take a Kiwi with him under each arm. Yeah, Robert everyone is going to want to come and live near you, not.

      Reply
 
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