By Kim on July 28, 2010
Julia Gillard’s response to alleged leaks reported by Laurie Oakes on Channel Nine and Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald can be viewed in full online.
NB: Previous discussion on LP is here.
Elsewhere: Peter Brent, Phil Gomes.
Elsewhere: Ben Eltham.
Posted in federal election 2010, Media | Tagged cabinet, Federal Election 2010, Julia Gillard, Laurie Oakes, leaks, paid parental leave, pension, Peter Hartcher, press conference |
Kim « profile & posts archive
This author has written 1111 posts for Larvatus Prodeo.
Best speech I’ve seen her give in this campaign.
Good article in Mumble.
It’s a shame that since Peter has put his blog in ‘The Australian’ the comments are just the usual News Ltd. Labor hating ones.
The leader has spoken and the matter is settled. Julia supports the pension increase and PPL. She just makes sure the sums add up.
Kevin will have a big gig in the next govt.
My tip is that there will be no more leaks against Julia (let them eat cake)or Kevin (a kid or drovers dog can run national security).
She has made Laurie look like a bitter old man.
I should probably actually view this interview first.
Have just come from the previous thread, where the cold realist comments of Katz, Ken L, Fran Barlow and others form a polar opposite to the hopeful containment and legitimate contextualising offered from Brian, et al.
1. it IS a beat up, which is not to say that what (some of) the Laurie Hoax arsonists present isn’t true.
2. Brian’s comment about social spending and limited funding is at the nub of that thread; my response would be, that social spending should not lose out to pork barrelling, defence, etc, a view similar to many others here, which is contra neolib.
Which would bring us back to a Fran Barlow comment, on reluctant withdrawal of support for both parties.
The electorate has long called for neolib policies referred to by people like Katz in his comment about bop shifting eastwards, to be repudiated- publically binned, as Gillard did with the work choices legislation.
Yet Gillard seems to be joining the queue of politicians who have refused reassertion of public interest, including accountability and transperancy, remaining in sync with neolib “governance”.
So she is wedged and its partly her own fault, but as Brain and others qualify, the pomo neolib global system allows very, very, little wriggle room for reformist politicians.
Appropriations by foreign powers and interests and their local allies takes even more precedence in policy from here on in.
Which means, one is no better off with Abbott than one would be with Gillard Labor; perhaps even worse, because Abbot is an enthusiast, whereas Gillard and co are conscripts, even if the reluctance is only residual and atavistic.
Now, suppose had better watch interview, before commenting further.
Elsewhere: Peter Brent, Phil Gomes.
Elsewhere: Ben Eltham.
This segment on The World Today has most of the important Gillard quotes. And there is this from Albanese:
The more I think about it the more I think the ‘leak’ came from the support staff in the PM’s department, where there must be a number of people who know they won’t be there for any length of time, if they are still there now.
I reckon that any ‘kitchen cabinet’ or cabinet meeting there would be three people there from the PM’s dept – someone like Alister Jordan, a minute secretary and a gofer. I imagine these people would talk to other people in the PM’s office for reasons of backup and continuity.
It’s not hard to imagine someone spilling their guts to Oakes.
I reckon Paul Norton is probably right and there may be more of these to come from a single conversation. Oakes would time them to prevent Gillard from gaining momentum and to continue the meme of internal strife etc.
The PM version cut out some of the Gillard quotes, dropped Albanese and intercut them with shite from Abbott.
All in the name of balance.
In a way it doesn’t matter who leaked it, though it seems pretty damned clear that it wasn’t someone closely aligned with Gillard. What is clear is that the level of emnity between Gillard and her backers and Rudd and his backers is so great, that Rudd, as the symbol of the discord, can never serve as a minister in a Gillard government. It simply isn’t going to happen.
Btw, Brian, I have no idea why you are pushing this line that the leak is most likely to have come from support staff within PMC. Why? Rudd was not popular within PMC and it seems unlikely to me that Jordan would have informed a PMC staffer that Gillard had made arguments against the policies. The former PMO is much more likely – the integrity of officials within the department is significantly greater than those of the political staffers. Also, it seems quite reasonable to think that Oakes received this information from the same person/people as provided the the backgrounding on the deal that Gillard supposedly welched on. PMC staff would not have been privy to that.
From Ben Eltham:
I’d agree with that, but not so sure about this:
With Oates and Hartcher, I think we don’t have bored journalists, more likely vengeful ones.
Btw, I would be very careful about trusting too much of what Hartcher writes. Over the past two years he has benefited significantly from his close relationship with Rudd. He knows that with Rudd gone, he won’t be getting much information from the new leadership and so will be increasingly irrelevent.
Eltham is wrong about this being a crisis. It is sucking the life out of Labor’s campaign. Today, Abbott managed to present a policy to both increase and decrease the corporate tax rate. The policy is crap. But you think that will get much airplay?
@12 – Vox pops on ABC News 24 of voters passing through the Sydney CBD seemed to indicate quite a bit of shine taken off Gillard by the leaks. I agree with you, LO, I think Eltham is wrong. This leak goes to the heart of Gillard’s appeal, and it’s different from the more internally or process focused ones that came out before, and potentially quite damaging in its own right, as well as throwing the campaign off balance.
LO, I still think that if Rudd confided in anyone about his pain in the meeting with Gillard and Faulkner it would have been someone or some people in the PMs department, when he was a bit catatonic.
I think that’s more likely than Faulkner or Gillard, or Albanese if he was there for a while.
If it’s a pollie, and there could be someone who is brainless enough, then yes it does matter who leaked.
But I’m aware, of course, that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
No, you are right, Kim and LO, about it being a crisis. I copied three paras and cut the middle one out, except I left a bit in.
My initial reaction was that we might be looking at the tipping point in the campaign, right there.
It’s damaging simply because it confirms the impression that people were beginning to make of Gillard, based on her behaviour since landing the top job. If it wasn’t feeding into existing or developing perceptions it wouldn’t be so significant.
BTW, for an ‘outsider’, LO, you have a habit of making pronouncements as though you had some insider knowledge that you are willing to share with us. For example, Hartcher’s allegedly close relationship with Rudd. Do you have any actual evidence of this, or are we expected to believe you as a result of your er, ‘outsider’ status?
I recall a number of highly critical articles by Hartcher of Rudd, so maybe this is just another myth that you are trying to propogate to discredit anyone who may be perceived as supportive of Rudd.
Brian, why the anger at Harcher and Oakes. Surely they are only doing their jobs and if this was a leak damaging a Liberal government I am sure you would have had no problem with that.
The whole episode underlines why it was such a stupid idea to knock over a PM so close to an election.
I’ll admit I don’t really see this as that damaging nor going to change many votes. But Gillard didn’t have to have the election so soon. She could have waited quite a while, but presumably the idea was to go to the polls during the honeymoon period and before too many people realised what the changes they hoped for with new leadership weren’t going to happen.
“The whole episode underlines why it was such a stupid idea to knock over a PM so close to an election.”
Exactly. What did these numbskulls think would happen, particularly as they started leaking to discredit Rudd straight after.
@14 – Brian, I think you mean the PMO – ie Rudd’s private office. Alister Jordan, etc, aren’t public servants but political staffers, and I’m sure that’s who Rudd was closeted with after the fact.
Barrie Cassidy:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/28/2966627.htm?site=thedrum
Chris, you might not see it as damaging, but the fact the PM held a press coference first thing this morning to address the issue might indicate how damaging Labor thought it might be.
Adrian. I’ve told you a number of times that I worked in Rudd’s office. So I have first hand knowledge of which journos he had better relationships with, and who he was most likely to give background info to, etc. You can chose to believe me or not. That doesn’t mean that Hartcher is going to write a puff piece every time.
The problem I have with Hartcher is that he is a hypcrite. The number of column inches he has wasted complaining about the campaign and the lack of vision on the part of the leaders – does he really think that this crap is going to lead to more visionary campaigning? Hartcher in his original piece put the worse possible spin on Gillard’s cabinet views, and then was at it again today after the press conference. He is not just reporting, but trying to shape the narrative. Is it any wonder that politicians try and control their messaging so tightly?
Cassidy is of course right that killing of a leader close to an election ran the risk of this sort of thing. The best thing for the party would have been if Rudd had announced he wouldn’t run at the next election and then taken a holiday while the campaign was on. He would have known that his mere presence would have been an enormous distraction during the campaign.
But I can fully understand why doing what is best for the party wouldn’t be at the forefront of his mind given what the party did to him a little while ago.
@23 –
Couldn’t agree more, LO.
Pollies and the meejah are caught in a cold embrace here.
They all play that game LO, and Hartcher’s by no means the worst. Just look at the guy who fronts The Insiders.
Hartcher is playing it no differently than any number of journalists have over the last thirty years. Some tend to lean to one side some to the other but whether they are biased or not comes down to a matter of perception. He was fine last election because he was mostly positive to Labor but this time he is unbalanced because he is not as positive and published a leak that damaged Gillard.
The ALP have put themselves in this position Hartcher and Oakes are only the messengers.
Adrian, I dont quite agree. Cassidy is a straight.
By contrast the Nurdoch Oakes Hoax is one of a sequence of contrived events in a rolling campaign to remove labor, right or wrong.
Forgive me but I think this is all a storm in a tea cup. Not only is the leak pretty worthless but the public know this stuff goes on on both sides during election campaigns. This will all be forgotten this time next week and I’d be surprised if even one person has changed their vote over this leak.
I can’t watch that dreadful show that he fronts. He’s a captive of the coalition/Labor right and Murdocracy talking points and has never had anything remotely interesting or original to say, but if that’s what floats your boat, fine.
As Paul Norton has pointed out on another thread, Peter Hartcher wrote this morning about the leaks as though their content were a matter of proven fact. It has been deliberately and carefully written to look that way. He did not at any point mention that the allegations had not been verified. Compare that with Mark Kenny in today’s Adelaide Advertiser, which for once did a far better job of accurate reporting:
From various things I heard on the radio this afternoon it’s sounding very much to me as if the leaker(s) have inadvertently provided Gillard with an occasion to come out sounding more sincere, more impassioned, more fearless and more convincing than she has since the day she became PM. Whoever it was must be kicking* themselves.
*And possibly also … Oh, never mind.
Got it in one, PC. None of this means much to the average switched-off punters and will be long past by the time they get around to thinking about voting. To those interested, however, I think it’s more likely to be positive.
My bet is, like Brian’s, it’s most likely one of the boy wonders from Kev’s staff. And it may well have been a ‘crying in their beer’ moment after getting rolled, which Oakes conveniently stored for maximum damage, as he did with the so-called succession deal.
I’ve thought that too, except that I’d got it into my head that Oakes had said it was an actual politician of some sort. If the Boy Wizards are contenders then I’d say they were pretty serious ones.
Trenton @ 16, I’m angry with Oates and Hartcher because, as LO said, they are trying to shape the narrative. In other words they are using the communication facility they have access to (an unelected privilege) in order to act politically rather than to report on politics. In other words they are ‘tools’ in the pejorative sense.
Kim @ 20, you’ve reminded me that my experience in government stopped nearly 20 years ago and I was one level down from where you have direct experience of the sort of thing that’s going on here. So for that and a some other reasons I plan to back off a bit on all this high energy stuff.
Before I go there was one highly significant statement on the ABC TV news tonight. The ABC guy (Mark Simkins?) quoted Labor sources as saying, “We know where it’s coming from, we can’t stop it and we don’t know what’s coming next.”
Then on the 7.30 Report Kezza, as usual, wasted his time banging away on stuff Wayne Swan was never going to give him anything. Boy, was Swannie angry! But he held his discipline.
There is one scenario where it might be to Rudd’s advantage for all this stuff to happen. That is if he has a job lined up overseas that he hasn’t told us about.
I honestly don’t think, though, that Rudd would be instrumental in any way in electing Tonny Abbott. The man has ideals, principles and basic decency.
Trenton @ 22 – I think the ALP have managed to spin it to their advantage – Gillard just being financially responsible.
@32 –
Dr Cat, you are right – Oakes says it is a “senior government source”, and implies it is a Cabinet Minister, as does Hartcher (who apparently has sources other than Oakes’ informants).
Jordan and his crew are no longer employed by the government; their employment was terminated when KRudd lost the top job.
Tanner?
Wodered about that one myself TP. He is no friend of Gillards but everybody around here seems to think he wouldn’t do that. Stranger things have happened.
Brian @33 Poor Swan, he only got 3mins at the end of the interview to talk about anything other than Gillard/Rudd.
The Abbott reality TV series has the media enthralled and stuff governing the country. Well, why read through policies and the like, when all this opinion and speculation can be written in the comfort of your own imagination?
Why aren’t we– the electorate– more angry about this sickening state of affairs?
@36 I was wondering the same thing.
I mean, it makes much more sense if it’s someone who is Anti-Gillard (as Tanner is well known to be) rather than pro-Rudd. Certainly Tanner would have access to a lot of this decision making, including a fair idea of what happened at the fateful meeting. (For example, it’s quite plausible that he would have, as a member of the “Kitchen Cabinet,” have approached either Gillard, Rudd, or others with a line to the effect of “While I was out for dinner I saw there’s a challenge and a meeting that I apparently attended, WTF is going on?!” and been given a decent answer, if not been outright approached by the numbers men to openly support or come out against Rudd).
Worse still, if it’s him, what are they gonna do about it? Refuse him preselection? Sack him from cabinet? He’s got nothing to lose and a lot to gain.
Either way, having watched Lateline and 7.30, the Libs and the media are going to run with this. Andrew Robb is already running a series of talking points about the “Government in disarray” which no doubt we’ll be sick of over the coming days.
@39 –
Well, they couldn’t, because he’s retiring and not contesting his seat.
@40 Exactly. He can do what he likes, and how can anyone retaliate?
My money’s on Tanner – as I said on the other thread earlier today.
He and Gillard hate each other from way back, they arent factional biddies, he wasnt in on the coup, he’s got no skin in he game (unlike the other suspect, Rudd), he alone didn’t agree with postponing their key CC initiative, and he was definitely in the room, and he aboled 10 seconds after Gillard took over.
You do the sums. Its got him written all over it, frankly.
I know it will be tough, since he’s so generally ace, to find he aint a Gillard fan, (and we may never know) but hey… shoes, shoe sizes.
thats “bailed 10 seconds after…”
Kim, I’d interpreted “senior government source” as vague and possibly running across the senior politicians, the PMO or a PS Grech-type figure.
I’m wondering what people think of the “we know where it’s coming from” remark I mentioned @ 33.
I’d ruled Tanner out as a man of principle and put him out of mind, but stranger things have happened.
That’s what Swan was all-but-saying on LL tonight Brian: “Im not saying a thing, but it wont be where you expect it”.
Im just saying all available evidence does kinda point to him.
But I readily concede it all circumstantial.
And…maybe he still is a man of principle, Brian. Something about damaging and pointless stones, from people in glass houses…?
It’s nothing to do with him not being a Gillard fan, it’s more the notion — him being so ace, as you say — that he’d be prepared to hand the country over to the Abbott and the Bishop for a sake of a little revenge and personal gratification, laying waste in the process to something he’s worked in and for all his adult life. It makes no sense. Even if he were less ace.
Someone on another thread said Tanner had opposed Gillard’s candidacy because she was a careerist conservative.
Also sometimes rigid adherence to a principle can have strange effects.
But I won’t believe it until we know.
If they know and it keeps happening they may have to come clean.
I think it is down to Rudd and Tanner and given what Swan and other Labor sources have said, I believe you can rule Rudd out.
Brian if it is Tanner he may believe he is acting on priciple.
I’m not sold on it being Tanner. I heard some potentially damaging rumours about Gillard in the lead up to the last election that he could run with if he wanted to destroy her career, certainly Labor wouldn’t have much chance of being returned anyway.
Even the idea of these last few comments having any credibility at all is heartbreaking.
I think it might be Rudd or Tanner but am leaning towards John Faulkner – (still waters run deep).
Although, Shorten can certainly not be ruled out. He is making a determined Long and Bloody March to the top.
More likely leakers though, are (in semi-reverse order):
Janette Howard
Bob Ellis
The rat-fucker in the Chinese embassy
David Marr
Laurie Oakes
Simon Crean – who is a well-known hater from way back
And really if Wayne Swan isn’t right in the frame for this one then we just aren’t looking at it right.
Antony Green should postpone the election on technical grounds until we can get some air and light and clear this up. Did Gillard ask questions about the pension hike or didn’t she. This is fundamental stuff. And I know I won’t be able to discharge my electoral responsibility until we all know. Hell, I won’t be able to sleep either.
Oakes for PM!
While we’re speculating, shouldn’t rule out that the person leaking is confident Labor will win anyway and is just starting with some undermining of Gillard’s leadership. Then when she gets in with a smaller than expected majority and the party is a little bit divided there will be fertile ground for replacing another PM….
Who knows, Pav. Maybe the leaker feels the country has already been handed over the the Libs.
AS for “for a sake of a little revenge and personal gratification” – that might describe the whole sorry business from day 1, June 24.
I think the plotters have created one hell of a mess.
Nonetheless, Abbott will lose. And whoever’s leaking probably knows it.
I’ve come to believe that the faux-Kirribili-Pact leak was, _perhaps_, either by (a.) someone in the dominant factional machine but not in caucus, i.e. a senior union or national executive figure who was entrusted with the information from Team Julia as a way of motivating them to work on getting the numbers for a partyroom vote, or, (b.) a leading pro-coup MP who wanted to set the record straight about Rudd being a defeatist who had to be dumped. Option (b.) explains motivation, option (a.) is probably just someone trying to impress Laurie Oakes as to the size of their political dick. (The pool of people with Oakes-reliable access to Cabinet discussions obviously goes way beyond ministerial staffers.)
The motivation in this new leak is beyond me. At least the last one could have been a preemptive, pre-campaign leak by pro-Gillard folks, which I at first assumed it was.
I discount pure revenge as a ‘motivation’. It’s far too lizard brain like.
I think its plausible the big fella has never received 1st hand testimony for either of these leaks he’s written about (I’d bet my left leg he never got 1st hand confirmation from any of the three who attended the bogus Kirribili deal). All it takes is for him to patch things together through a variety of different 2nd hand souces from caucus, the ministerial offices & the broader machine.
There’s the rub—Oakes could have used some relatively indirect, non-frontbench grassers to get a result that’s 100% accurate RE the pre-coup showdown, yet by relying on the exact same type of chatter he could be horribly mistaken about Gillard being against these two policies discussed in Cabinet. And in Laurie’s world that’s not bad journalism, rather it’s a good strike rate. The doyen of the gallery is doing good work being right half the time.
It’s the first shot in the Shorten ’12 leadership campaign!:-)
“he could be horribly mistaken about Gillard being against these two policies discussed in Cabinet”
That would mean Gillard was lying to admit she was ‘against’ the two polices discussed. If you were never ‘against’, and he was horribly mistaken, you’d outright deny.
More important in my late-night theories are the two policies themselves – pension increase and parental leave.
And who owns those words now. There’s a fairly strong consensus across this morning’s media.
Has Gillard confessed to this?
I think the real truth might be something like this: on both occasions Tanner joined the other two Inner Cabinet members in supporting the pension increase and paid maternity leave (he’s actually something of a family values conservative, and this tendency might have outweighed his dedication to being a Fiscal Hard Man). Julia Gillard felt she had to play the devil’s advocate, otherwise there wouldn’t have been a real nay voice in Cabinet ‘cos nobody else mattered.
That’s the only reasonable explanation for her speaking against these two issues. The alternative is for her to be a feminist in the Socialist Left who doesn’t care much for working mothers or seniors.
Nick, there is an article in the CM this morning saying quoting Everald Compton, National Seniors Australia chairman, saying that he’d personally negotiated with Swan on the aged pension:
The Daily Telegraph today on the front page published a digitally altered image of Gillard as a 65 year-old.
Seems defamatory to me.
Geez that’s dreadful, Brian. And their online poll question is: Is Julia Gillard right to ignore the plight of pensioners?
This is the same mob that were singing her praises a few months ago.
“She’s a liar and a communist and we don’t want communists in power,” she said.
LOL – I’m having a political acid flashback!
Barrie Cassidy has just told Madonna King that flat out it’s Rudd.
Just sayin. I don’t know how reliable Cassidy would be.
Craig Emerson. The assumption that the two leaks come from the same person doesn’t wash imo. Emerson is a Queenslander and fully aware of how dumping Rudd would play out and worked with Finance Minister Tanner on de-regulation for one. Tanner could have, innocently, given Gillard’s views on pensions, maternity leave to his younger assistant. Being an experienced party operative, Emerson would know which buttons to push. There is also an affair of the heart to consider. Gillard the musical is a sure bet.
Not Craig Emerson, pablo, he’s not that devious. He always supports the current leader out of principle, he says. Gillard is the current leader.
If you heard him sparring with George Brandis on radio every week as I do you’d understand it couldn’t be Craig.
Brian @ 58 – so much for cabinet confidentiality! Another example of it just being used as a political convenience – leak when its advantageous. And he’s hardly going to publicise that someone in cabinet is against the pension increase – given the politics at the time.
btw I don’t see how its defamatory but there are there are 5 digitally altered images on that page.
Chris, I’m not a lawyer and I meant ‘defamatory’ in a common language sense. It does seem to me that they are repeating information known to be wrong in order to affect Gillard’s reputation.
Brian, how do we know Barrie didn’t get this insight from Andrew Bolt? Lie down with dogs, get up with crazy fleas.
I think if any senior minister knew they were to walk the plank after the election it would be Emerson. And it’s not like he’s nursing a dream to be UN secretary general, something which necessitates a stint as foreign minister…
Even with vacancies created by the leaving of Tanner and Faulkner there’s still the little problem that there’s a host of young Turks and useful meritocrats to bring into Cabinet, and the most outspoken opponent of the leadership change (Craig E) may just not be worth as much as an Arbib or a Mike Kelly.
Barrie friggin’ Cassidy is the last person I’d listen to regarding this or any other matter to do with politics. He fronts the ABC’s version of a Fox News talking heads show and his opinion should be viewed with the utmost suspicion or better still just ignored.
I’d bet a sizeable amount that it wasn’t Rudd. He has everything to lose and very little to gain.
Brian @ 65 – Sorry, I thought you were referring to the photo. I’d imagine you have to have pretty thick skin to be a politician when it comes to how your are visually represented (especially cartoons).
Apart from anything else. the image of “Gillard at 65″ made her look like a person on minimum income at 80. They had her as a “bag lady”. She reminded me of “mama” from The Addams Family.
Gillard, if she is still in public life at 65, won’t look like that.
Perhaps most interesting is what this reveals about The Telegraph‘s view of its ageing readership. This is how it views them.
Since we’re quoting right wing hacks, apparently one Alan Jones reckons it’s not Rudd, more likely his Labor sources tell him, Tanner.
If this is true the biggest worry is that Jones has Labor sources.
Just concerning Emerson, he consistently comes across as having no guile within him, no dark places of the soul. Gillard might take revenge because he swallowed her contact lenses one night in a glass of water in the bathroom at 2am after he’d been specifically warned about that. Probly not.
I think Gillard would be well aware of his capabilities and if she selects her ministry on merit, he’ll be there.
But I’m inclined to think now it will be a shadow cabinet position we’d be looking at, unfortunately.
There’s a Morgan poll out showing lessening Labor support, according to the ABC if someone wants to look it up. I’ve gotta go.
Fran @ 69, right on all counts, probably. Doesn’t Malcolm Farr run the Telegraph?
If so it says something about him.
Gary Linell (I think) is the editor of the Terrograph, and he should be ashamed of himself for allowing that front page to go nto press.
For the reasons PC and Brian have mentioned, I am unable to bring myself to believe that Tanner is the source. All I know of Lindsay Tanner suggests that, even if he does decide it’s necessary to stab someone in order to achieve a higher political end, he will stab them in the front, unmasked and with his prints on the hilt.
OK Brian I bow to your Queenslander savvy, but please keep the Emerson-Gillard anecdotes coming for the planned musical. A couple of points: all caucus members usually express loyalty to the ‘leadership’, Emerson’s humiliating backdown on ‘Grocery watch’ probably doomed him for ministerial advancement, but public profile – QandA regular and noted Question Time performer/headkicker may have left him with a damaged/unfulfilled ego. I couldabeenacontender but for…
That’s absolutely my last word on leakers.
“That’s the only reasonable explanation for her speaking against these two issues.”
Yes, and I believe most people have been happy to accept that explanation. Brian, I wasn’t suggesting Gillard offered any real opposition to the policies. Just that the leak wasn’t entirely baseless (ie. Oakes wasn’t horribly mistaken), as it contained enough truth to have to be countered with a press conferenced explanation. As your link indicates, it could be easily refuted by a wide range of sources anyway.
So, as far as leaks go, not exactly an election rocking scandal. Quite the opposite.
Yes, the Daily Telegraph certainly stood out in its response this morning. Compare with the rest in the stable:
Herald Sun: At last some passion. PM Julia Gillard’s fiery defence stirs Labor troops
Australian: At last, we are seeing the real Prime Minister
Fairfax headlines appeared less favourable, but the content spoke differently.
Too right, Adrian. And that probably confirms Rudd’s innocence as you suggest. Rudd has consistently refused to deal with Jones. On radio today, Gillard said that Kevin was a person of the highest integrity, more or less putting to rest that he was involved.
It’s damaging and I’d wish whoever it was would either STFU or blab openly rather than secretly. However, I’m not as gloomy about it as Brian appears to be. Still a long way to go. On the up side, it may force Gillard to reveal more of her passion as she did in her speech yesterday. That would at least encourage voters that she stood for something.
It will make the campaign launch interesting. We’ll be watching to see if anyone’s missed in the hugging and kissing.
“There’s a Morgan poll out showing lessening Labor support, according to the ABC if someone wants to look it up. ”
Brian, Morgan wasnt too bad at all: 54-46 face-to-face; and 53-47 on the phone poll. ALP primaries down 2 and 1 respectively.
Galaxy is more of a worry at 50-50; primaries 37 Labor, 43 Coalition, 13 Greens. But Galaxy seems a bit out of whack with the rest.
“… the biggest worry is that Jones has Labor sources.”
Well, since discovering Bolta does, I’m less shocked than I might have been.
He knew more about the plot against Rudd than most of caucus.