For reasons which are difficult to fathom, Julia Gillard has found herself on the receiving end of some particularly torrid criticism over her response to the Queensland flood crisis.
Much of it is undoubtedly coming from those who already dislike the Prime Minister and will seize on any event or issue to run her down. But some of it appears to be coming from people who have no real interest in politics, no ideological axe to grind, but who have found themselves left cold by the PM’s performance this week.
Julia Gillard has been criticised for smiling too much, not looking sad enough; at the same time, she’s been accused of affecting a hang-dog expression aimed at contriving a sense of concern, talking in a matronly monotone which makes her sound rehearsed and insincere.
At a time when emergency crews are still searching for dozens of missing people, and when tens of thousands of people are mopping up sludge from their kids’ bedrooms and finding Christmas presents stuck in the trees, any discussion of the tone, language and demeanour of a politician, albeit our most senior politician, should logically rank extremely low on the list of priorities.
That might be the case. But it’s been happening in earnest around the land. And it’s a significant problem for Julia Gillard.
Tony Abbott hasn’t had a particularly good time of it this week either. Using the floods as the premise for attacking the cost of the national broadband network was absurd and almost tasteless. But Tony Abbott isn’t the Prime Minister and as such has less to lose through his handling of this important week.
Tragedies can be the making of national leaders. In the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, just months into his prime ministership in 1996, John Howard won praise across the political divide for not only showing compassion, but devising the meaningful and politically difficult response of a national guns buyback, a move which inflamed traditional rural conservative voters and helped create the One Nation juggernaut which in 1998 would almost cost Howard power. In the wake of the Bali attacks in 2002, by which stage Howard was well entrenched as PM, he was again commended by many voters for a stoic but heartfelt response.
This column might be overstating the extent of the disquiet about Gillard’s performance this week. But if any reader can point me to the groundswell of people lavishing praise upon Ms Gillard for her response, I’d like to see the evidence, as much of the chatter I’ve come across correlates with the following.
June Beckett of Tumbi Umbi wrote in The Daily Telegraph: “Having watched the horror of the Queensland floods, I had naively hoped that the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, while expressing sympathy, would say a few words giving some inspiration to those afflicted. Instead, there she was dressed in black, intoning in a funereal voice…”
Melinda Gaughwin, and others, on Twitter chose to retweet this bon mot from a fellow called Oscar7g who took issue with the PM’s manner at her many media calls this week: “Against Bligh’s staidness, Gillard just doesn’t cut it with her bobbing head and smarmy sincerity.”
And this from Geoff O’Brien of Eltham in The Australian: “Watching the relative performances of Anna Bligh and Julia Gillard in discussing the tragic Queensland floods, one gets the sense that only one of these women is qualified to be Prime Minister. Do you like cold weather, Anna?”
And so on.
Much of this criticism is obviously comparative, drawing an unfavourable parallel with Queensland Premier Anna Bligh who, despite being the second-most unpopular State leader in the land, has won deserved plaudits for her workmanlike and tireless effort this week.
Some of it is probably caused by the distraction of Kevin Rudd who, true to his 2007 campaign one-liner that he’s “from Queensland and here to help”, appears to have contacted every media outlet in the land to pass on the exact times and locations where he will be helping this week. Never mind that the help he’s been offering has been of a faintly comical tits-on-a-bull quality, as if the one thing you really need when your house has been inundated is to find a Mandarin-speaking foreign policy wonk bobbing about at the end of your driveway, the sleeves rolled down on his business shirt, cameras in tow. Still, good on him for the gesture anyway, even if much of it has been aimed at irritating the woman who stole his job and setting himself up as a de facto national leader in a time of crisis.
My suspicion though is that the main source of the criticism towards Julia Gillard is Julia Gillard herself – principally, through the enduring and serious damage she did to her own credibility during the election campaign by drawing a distinction between the real Julia and the fake Julia. The words people are using to criticise the PM all go to sincerity. Her detractors think she sounds put-on, fake, phoney, rehearsed. Given that she told the Australian people that a fake Julia had been on the loose, it is more than understandable that many continue to have their doubts about her in the fair dinkum department. Despite flashes of her natural straight talk, energy and passion in the wake of last year’s election impasse, it has never really been established if the fake Julia was caught and replaced with the real one anyway, and this week has done nothing to set us straight.
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