http://www.thepunch.com.au/tags/julia-gillard/ Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/wrap-of-the-week-its-the-economy-stupid/ There is a touch of Lleyton Hewitt about Julia Gillard. It is not merely that both are redheads or that they hail from South Australia. It is that both have a curious tendency to produce their best only when staring at defeat. Hewitt fans are used to their man dropping a set or two before pulling out his A-game. Ms Gillard too seems best when her back is against the wall. This was clear in the last election campaign following Cabinet leaks aimed at destroying her - she held a doorstop press conference and impressed with a purposeful denial stripped of all the lame scripting and woodiness of her usual approach. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/wrap-of-the-week-its-the-economy-stupid/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/wrap-of-the-week-its-the-economy-stupid/#item7726 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/six-prominent-aussies-with-a-case-of-the-dreaded-yips/ The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/six-prominent-aussies-with-a-case-of-the-dreaded-yips/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/six-prominent-aussies-with-a-case-of-the-dreaded-yips/#item7720 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/is-it-sexist-weve-got-nothing-to-compare-it-to/ It all started with the empty fruit bowl on a stark kitchen bench in Altona. The Fairfax profile of Julia Gillard in her first early days of prime ministership was a sign of times to come. Being Australia’s first female PM was going to be far from easy. From grooming, decorum and the sound of her voice, to the appropriateness of her relationship with de facto partner, Tim Mathieson. To the lack of emotion displayed on cue from the devastation of the Queensland floods.  When it comes to scrutiny of the personal nature, as a politician Julia Gillard has copped more than most.  As a prime minster it’s been unprecedented. The only real question is why. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/is-it-sexist-weve-got-nothing-to-compare-it-to/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/is-it-sexist-weve-got-nothing-to-compare-it-to/#item7694 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/memo-kev-pee-or-get-off-the-pot/ The joke when Peter Costello was trying in vain to cobble together a viable leadership push was that he had enough supporters to fill a Tarago van. Kevin Rudd probably has around the same level of support – Kev’s van might also be fitted with a trailer to carry a few extra bods up the back – but it in numerical terms it is far from being an unstoppable juggernaut which will steamroll Julia Gillard out of the top job. It’s the numbers that matter in politics. In the absence of good numbers, aspiring leaders fall back on psychology. History suggests it offers no sure path to the leadership. Quite the opposite. Peter Costello was a bit like the dorky guy at the school disco who hung around in the corner hoping a girl would ask him to dance. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/memo-kev-pee-or-get-off-the-pot/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/memo-kev-pee-or-get-off-the-pot/#item7697 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Gillards-mapping-a-route-but-will-probably-still-be-routed/ Julia Gillard and her advisers believe they can see a narrow path to victory for Labor at the next federal election. They spent the Christmas break devising a political strategy aimed at taking the Government along that path. Wednesday’s speech by the prime minister - titled `Building a new Australian economy together’ - was, in effect, a map of the route she plans to take. Sadly for Gillard, it is almost certainly too late. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Gillards-mapping-a-route-but-will-probably-still-be-routed/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Gillards-mapping-a-route-but-will-probably-still-be-routed/#item7684 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/kevin-could-be-better-or-it-could-be-even-kruddier/ As key moments go, it ranked with Gough Whitlam’s dramatic dismissal speech branding Malcolm Fraser “Kerr’s cur’’ or the latter’s lip-quivering concession on election night, 1983. It was June 24, 2010. Before a huge media throng, a teary Kevin Rudd, his composure failing, his bewildered family staring awkwardly forward, detailed his achievements one by one. Long silences exacerbated the tension. It was excruciating. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/kevin-could-be-better-or-it-could-be-even-kruddier/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/kevin-could-be-better-or-it-could-be-even-kruddier/#item7685 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/julia-gillard-is-on-the-highway-to-the-danger-zone/ Typically, leadership contests have that nagging chicken-or-egg feel about them. They usually involve a period of intense public speculation with various insiders anonymously cited as backing this option or that. It is a process which can leave voters suspicious of motives if only because change, division, and conflict, make great news copy. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/julia-gillard-is-on-the-highway-to-the-danger-zone/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/julia-gillard-is-on-the-highway-to-the-danger-zone/#item7681 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/fuelled-by-carbon-tax-plane-fares-have-lift-off/ Julia Gillard wanted her huge compensation package to give the carbon pricing scheme a soft landing in July. But Qantas has shot down that hope with February price rises. The carbon scheme pushing up Qantas fares is the European version. But their penalty on emissions is much smaller than our $23 a tonne will be. The impact here could be greater. Opposition leader Tony Abbott will use this to further underline his claim that carbon pricing will hurt the economy, and to question whether families will be fully protected from rises in expenses. The airline has preempted by two months the start of the Government’s carbon pricing compensation, $1.5 billion which was to go to welfare recipients in May and June as advance payments. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/fuelled-by-carbon-tax-plane-fares-have-lift-off/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/fuelled-by-carbon-tax-plane-fares-have-lift-off/#item7676 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-comedy-of-errors-thats-not-very-funny/ In three days the whole Labor Caucus is due in Canberra to break out the white boards and textas and brainstorm some policy ideas for the year, then share a sausage sizzle at The Lodge. The MPs who’ve been summoned would be forgiven for demanding one of the areas up for discussion should be how the Prime Minister intends to turn around what’s been a terrible start to the year. They’d be well within their rights to say, actually we’re not the problem Prime Minister. In the last week since Julia Gillard’s office set off one of the ugliest events in recent political history, the PM’s operation appears to be in a constant state of SNAFU. Let’s not relive the Tony Hodges affair, except to say it has not been successfully put to bed by the resignation of the meddling media adviser. Questions still remain about who in Gillard’s office knew what, and when. At best it seems some of her most senior staff kept Gillard in the dark about Hodges’ confession to the fateful phone call overnight and well into the next day. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-comedy-of-errors-thats-not-very-funny/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-comedy-of-errors-thats-not-very-funny/#item7661 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-to-give-a-speech-that-wont-come-back-to-bite-you/ That fateful ``no carbon tax’’ statement by Julia Gillard just before the last election has turned Australian political leaders into timid campaigners for the public vote. We now are being courted by scaredy cats. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott showed that yesterday with his aspiring and projecting a range of projects, anything short of a genuine commitment he might later be bound by. Or hung from. Prime Minister Julia Gillard repeated that caution over-load today with an economic policy outline which had no specific, detailed objectives. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Antony McMullen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-to-give-a-speech-that-wont-come-back-to-bite-you/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-to-give-a-speech-that-wont-come-back-to-bite-you/#item7658 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:12 +0000 The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble. The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy. If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you.