Gillard's homophobia

Labor has every right to take the gay community for granted - the opinion leaders are uncritically fawning.

Yesterday when Mr Pyne rose to interrupt Ms Gillard with a point of order during Question Time, the Education Minister laid into him. This is Gillard in Question Time on 23 February:

"I must admit that I did want to see the member for Warringah (Tony Abbott) making a comeback,'' she said.

"In a choice between macho and mincing, I would have gone for macho myself.''


Ms Gillard continued: "And obviously the Leader of the Opposition (Malcolm Turnbull), faced with the choice of a doberman or poodle, has gone for the poodle.

"Presumably he prefers Abba to Cold Chisel, because that is the kind of thing we see on display.''

The clear intimation from Gillard is that Pyne is gay and what better way to make that point by subtly reinforcing some negative gay stereotypes.

Gay men don't walk, they mince.

You can't be gay and macho.

Gay men, they love poodles because in the animal kingdom, they have the same status as gay men - they are weak, they get all dressed up and they don't really deserve to be taken seriously.

And if you like ABBA, you are most probably a mincing homosexual.

If you are Julia Gillard, and you are caught out - brush it off and claim it was spur of the moment stuff. And by the way, homophobia is 'humorous':

"In question time you've got to have your moments of humour and I think that that was a moment of humour,'' Ms Gillard said today.

Disgraceful.

Pork barrelling

“Fortunately for Australia, there is a mood for change in the community – a community tired of the old politics of vote buying and pork-barrelling,”
Treasurer Wayne Swan, March 2008

That's a relief. Didn't last long though. Today - Friday the 13 - the Senate passed the biggest pork barrelling package in Australian history. Nation building 2009 style is now comprised of insulating private homes, giving people some random cash (where did $950 come from?) and building netball courts in schools (long neglected by state Labor governments).

Turnbull put it best: 'You know what someone said to me just a little while ago, very wise point. He said, imagine if 60 years ago Ben Chifley and Bob Menzies had sent everyone a cheque for 50 pounds instead of building the Snowy Mountain scheme'.

No need to imagine. The reality is unfolding before us.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Kevin. Cracker.

Janet Albrechtsen nails it in this cracking piece in the Australian today.

She perfectly captures the essence of Rudd's appeal to the disengaged - how he stands for nothing and runs on populist, safe issues regardless of the long term good.

Breathtaking Hubris

Say what you like about Tony Abbott, he is what he says he is and he knows how to write.

Abbot really nails the folly, hypocrisy and inconsistency in Rudd's essay on 'the great neo-liberal experiment' in the Australian this weekend.

I am yet to see anyone so succinctly and forcefully put the argument. In the process he goes to the heart of what divides Labor and Liberal in Government.