See Four Corners last night? You know, the program that everyone’s been talking about for weeks, hinting at how nervous Labor insiders were at the idea that The Comeback Kid [insert question mark here] would fuel leadership speculation. Yeah, well, apart from being a highlights reel of 2010 (with a couple of awkward insights like the fact Hillary Clinton seemed to know about the spill before the press gallery did), there was nothing in it.
Just a little bit more fodder for Julia Gillard’s failure of character: you know she can’t be trusted, because there was a speech kicking around two weeks before Kevin Rudd was knifed, and she wouldn’t say if she knew about it.
It was, as Bernard Keane writes today, a great example of how “the whole of federal politics appears to be in a sub-atomic realm, unrelated to any external truth”.
It’s up there with Christopher Pyne’s assertion that the so-called Tent Embassy “cover-up” is on par with — actually, worse than — Nixon’s Watergate cover up. As Keane writes: “… to watch question time yesterday without being conscious of just how separated political life has become, especially when it is dominated by two leaders who are so profoundly disliked by the electorate.”
You certainly wouldn’t have liked the Prime Minister any more watching the ABC last night. Why she took the bait — and ruined any chance to rise above it just this once — is beyond us.
I had the unfortunate experience of watching Four Corners last evening and in particular I refer to the following exchange with the interviewer:
“(To Julia Gillard) Are you aware that two weeks before Rudd was removed from office, that a speech was being prepared in your office that you would subsequently deliver when you were Prime Minister?
JULIA GILLARD: Look, I am not surprised that… whether it’s people in my office or people more broadly in the Government or the Labor Party were casting in their mind where, circumstances might get to, of course. Political people look at political circumstances, and they think about where they might go to.
ANDREW FOWLER: With respect, you haven’t answered the question, and the question was: did you know that people in your office, two weeks before Kevin Rudd was removed as Prime Minister, were preparing a speech that you subsequently delivered?
JULIA GILLARD: Look, I’ve given you… I’ve given you the best answer I can – which is, I’m not surprised that there were people, you know, around government, who were c… you know, in their own mind…
ANDREW FOWLER: But did you know?
JULIA GILLARD: Uh well, I did not ask for a speech to be prepared.
ANDREW FOWLER: But were you aware that one was being prepared?
JULIA GILLARD: Look, I’ve just given the best answer I can to your question.
ANDREW FOWLER: My question was simply whether or not you knew…
JULIA GILLARD: I heard your question and I’ve answered it.
ANDREW FOWLER: You haven’t answered the question.
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I’ve given you the answer I’m going to give you.”
This is the most abject political misrepresentation that I can remember in recent history, probably equal to that of George W Bush and Tony Blair on Iraq or Bill Clinton in relation to Monica Lewinsky. Having watched the Four Corners program on Kevin Rudd’’s political assassination, I don’t know which is more revolting, her duplicity and lack of candour, or the appalling hubris of union leaders who think that parliamentary government is a game for union factions and not the representatives of the Australian community in a parliamentary democracy.
Gillard obviously lacks any sense of personal integrity, repeatedly failing to answer questions relating to her knowledge of the impending coup d’état, including not answering the question as to whether her own speech writers were writing her prime ministerial acceptance speech two weeks before the knifing of Rudd.
The utterance of a union leader “that there is no love for Kevin Rudd in the Labor Party, certainly not within the union” belies the fact that the Prime Minister of Australia is more than a factional plaything for the cut and thrust of union politics, and is a further indication of the amoral pursuit of power by union leaders.
Her duplicity will go down in history as the most appalling betrayal of confidence by an aspiring Australian Prime Minister, for whom grasping of power was far more important than any sense of propriety or fair play and showing a total disregard for any consideration of the truth.
Her abject denials prior to the coup stand in stark contrast to what we now know to be an appalling power play in which she was obviously heavily involved despite manifest denials. I have been a Labor voter most of my life, and I jumped for joy when John Howard lost his seat. I campaigned assiduously to help get Whitlam into power and campaigned actively against the Vietnam war and conscription.
However I have never been so disgusted with the performance of a Labor leader in my life when I watched her obfuscate last night. I remember her utterances as Deputy PM about having a better chance of being full forward for the “Doggies” than being Prime Minister, while obviously like Lady Macbeth she was plotting to take control.
I thought her credibility was at rock bottom over the BER disaster, no carbon taxes, screwing over Wilkie and sucking up to Peter Slipper, but I must say when watching her duplicitous obfuscation when confronted with a persistent interviewer it made me want to puke. As a Labor leader and Prime Minister she no longer has any credibility whatsoever.
Get your hands off it whistleblower – what overblown hyperbole…
And whoever wrote the lead – I bet you along with every other journalist had that last sentence written in two forms – she was damned if she did,damned if she didn’t appear.
“took the bait”? Gillard co operated with the country’s national broadcaster & made herself available for an interview. Would you care to speculate on the headlines if she’d refused?
Actually, Gillard cops a bit of flak from the self appointed experts for answering questions, when it would be “wiser” for her to walk away. Not a criticism that can be leveled at her oponent.
A deputy must be prepared to take up the responsibilities of the person for whom they may be called upon, at short notice, to replace. Jack McEwan’s staff would have a prepared speech in readiness of the unexpected disability or death of Harold Holt. He was not left to flounder about – caught flat-footed by the sudden demise of the Prime Minister. President Johstone had his speech ready when Jack Kennedy was assassinated. We know that Newspapers have notices of possible events involving persons of significance so that they can go to print immediately – CNN has erroneously released seven prewritten obituary notices of major world figures. Princess Elizabeth was in South Africa when George Vl died and she immediately dressed in mourning clothes. It cannot be assumed that she planned her fathers death because she had the appropriate mourning clothes in her luggage when she traveled.
It is being assumed that Ms Gillard planned Prime Minister Rudd’s lack of support because her office prepared a speech in readiness for such an eventuality. If he had died and Ms Gillard’s office had a speech prepared (as it should have) would journalists infer that she must have planned his death?
Wanna see what happens in an abattoir? Still want to enjoy a steak though, I’ll bet.
Politics isn’t much different, and all this gnashing of teeth is the product of a media obsessed with knowing how the beast was slaughtered in graphic detail, and then how the sausages were made.
It’s prurient, puerile and diminishes us all, but I’m thinking that just may be the intention.