One of the many irritants in the Prime Minister’s life at the moment is the Julia Gillard-for-PM bandwagon (actually it’s more like a mini-wagon, but wagon trails have to start somewhere).
Not because there is any realistic chance of Gillard unseating Kevin Rudd before this year’s election — there isn’t — but because of what it means for his, and Labor’s, electoral trajectory and stability.
The fact that some dogs are barking about Gillard now is little more than a media beat-up. But that won’t be the case after this year’s election, unless Rudd is able to improve the government’s margin, which seems highly unlikely.
At that point, which is only months away, there is every chance Rudd will be returned as PM with a reduced margin and a battered reputation inside his own party.
That’s when the Gillard bandwagon will become a real bandwagon, and that’s when the Labor Party could start looking a lot like the Liberal Party during its bitter Costello-Howard imbroglio years.
The only difference this time is that the contender, despite her gender, almost certainly has the cojones to complete the task.
Well you shouldn’t use the obviously sexist ‘balls’ to refer to courage, nerve or overweening ambition, whatever you really mean.
It is more than a media beat-up.
Last Thursday in Question Time, Darren Cheeseman dropped his Freudian slip. He referred to Julia Gillard as “the prime minister”.
Hansard doctored the transcript by omitting the words “deputy prime minister,” from his first sentence and the word “prime” from his second sentence.
For a verbatim transcript, Hansard should have included the words which I have inserted (in upper case) as follows:
Nation Building and Jobs Plan
Mr CHEESEMAN (3.06 pm)—My question is to the DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion.
Would the PRIME minister update the House on today’s labour force figures and the importance of and the recognition of investments the government is making to support jobs?
This is beat up plain and simple. It is in the media’s interest to make smoke where there is no fire. Move along.
Hey, here’s an idea how about we have 7 or 8 years of stable government and then see how it is panning out after that alright. Australia does not care.
Remember the last election when Julia was portrayed by the Libs and their media enablers as (gasp!) a socialist who worked for unions (horror!) and a fundamental danger to life as we know it?
Now some of those very same media enablers are driving the Draft Julia bandwagon. Wankers.
I think the right wing media are promoting Gillard as a rival to Rudd to destabalise Labor. If Gillard becomes leader the same media will return to casting her as socialist left, friend of the unions, etc.