Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Julia Gillard on Q and A last night

Julia Gillard was on Q and A last night. I didn't watch every little moment of her appearance because I find her so annoying in so many ways that I have to turn off the TV from time to time. Did see most of it, however.

And there were a few things that stood out. Firstly, I don't think she mentioned Tony Abbott even once. This was really noticeable because she and pretty much everyone else in the ALP have been doing their level best to demonize him for months.

Perhaps the focus group results have shown that Australians are sick to death of the relentless, destructive negativity of this mean-spirited tactic and the spin doctors have told Gillard et al to ease up on it for a while? We'll know this to be the case if Gillard maintains the approach she used last night, and ministers such as Craig Emerson refrain from their endless Abbott bashing in interviews and on Twitter.

The other alternative is that maybe she was just playing with Abbott's mind? That's possible. But frankly, I don't think she's that smart.

As usual, she never really answered any questions. She just used them to wheel out the old platitudes about how she was motivated solely by her desire to improve the lot of working families.

She also used one of her favourite phrases "it was a judgement call, and I made it" at least once. She frequently uses this or a variation thereof to "answer" questions about why she made a certain decision.

This is akin to saying: "Yes, I did decide that. And what I decide goes. That's all you need to know."

It goes beyond the usual obfuscatory poli-speak and reveals a disdain for the public that is really quite sinister. But she's so polished and relaxed in her delivery that she gets away with it. And she'll throw in that stupid little fake giggle of hers occasionally, which also seems to put people off the scent.

And just re that laugh. One time it did actually appear to be genuine was when she concurred with this audience member's observation:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: If you go by the opinion polls when Kevin was challenging for the leadership, the majority of Australians would have preferred to have him as the leader of the Labor Party but the Labor Party sought different to have somebody else.

JULIA GILLARD: That's true. Well, and the way...

TONY JONES: It is a strange dichotomy, though, isn’t it? The Labor Party wanted someone, the people wanted someone else is what he is saying.


So, she actually admitted that her party brazenly flouted the will of the people. And she thought this was funny. Very revealing.

Needless to say Labor's useful idiots took to Twitter with gusto, saying how assured and genuine Gillard was. True to form the ABC's online editors made sure these nauseating suck-tweets were given inordinate exposure.

Ugh ... Oh well, as galling as this was it's actually a good thing. It merely confirmed that creepy communards are currently in control, as well as the disturbing extent of their influence. When the good people of Oz do get a chance to kick them out of office, they'll be kicking bloody hard, that's for sure.

5 comments:

  1. needless to say it's obvious that you are a somewhat deaf conservative if all you hear is one side of politics using relentless, destructive negativity. Both sides may be as bad as each other Matt but the reality is that it is the Opposition parties who are always the more negative, and this opposition has taken it to an extraordinary level because they still can't get over the fact that they are not governing. I'd like to see them do abetter job in a minority situation. If you ever watch Q&A, you'd see that nearly every Labor politician has been measured and level headed. The Opposition 'politicians' have answered every question ever asked with a snide, whinging, negative theme that sort of shows they only play the man and never really have the country at heart. It will be an even sadder place when they get in. Oh, except for Gina, Clive and all their other mates that they will look after.

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  2. Labor are the most negative, destructive force affecting the country right now. So being negative about them is actually ... very positive!

    Measured and level headed? No way. That's just them reading drone-like from the latest script given to them by the Labor spin doctors.

    Re the challenge of a minority government: Thankfully, your theory won't be tested in reality because there's no way we'll have a minority government when we next get to vote. Labor will suffer such an epic slaughter there'll be rivers of blood flowing through the streets of Canberra.

    In any case Gillard didn't have to let herself be dictated to by green howler monkeys like she did. Could have just told them to sod off and they would have had to put up with it.

    This whole mess with the carbon tax is a result of her utter lack of spine and vision. Labor are gonna suffer for it big time -- and for a long time.

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  3. Piss off Anonymous, you Labor hack.

    "you'd see that nearly every Labor politician has been measured and level headed" as level headed as Craig Thompson? Peter Slipper? I prefer the lesser evil of the Liberals.

    I watched the Q&A episode. I was disgusted at how edited the Twitter stream was. Opinion polls show 3/4 of the Australian public DO NOT want her as PM. Yet funny how Q&A only showed pro-Labor comments.

    Let's see how much the Gillard fans love her when they see their next electricity and gas bill. Oh, that's right, they're being given hand outs to cover the carbon tax so we become like Greece 2.0.

    This country is falling apart. I can't WAIT to see her replaced by Abbott and I don't even like the guy.

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  4. For the record, if belatedly, I thought the Prime Minister did a remarkably good job of directly answering many, if not all the questions. Better than most politicians would do & way better than the Opposition Leader has done recently.

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  5. The carbon price will help drive market signals to shift the Aust'n energy system to become less greenhouse gas emitting over time. This is important for Australia to do to help build international trust that countries are willing to work together to avoid the worst case scenarios of climate change projections. It will help reduce emissions, but the low income households are being compensated for the costs that will flow through to them, which is fair. You & others may not agree with it, but the Opposition's Alternaive will be far more costly, & won't be able to be further scaled up if we decide we need to increase our emission reduction targets (which is inevitable). Two weeks in & the sky of course has not fallen in.

    Speaking of talking from a script the Opposition leader Mr Abbott is no better. He doesn't say anything that isn't a scripted slogan these days. Though I acknowledge he delivers his slogans with conviction, that dosen't make them any the vacuous.

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