When is this whinger going to get anything right. A book full of her struggle, what struggle? ushered into parliament by Emilys listers and cosseted by the corrupt unions. The most divisive PM in history and the most incompetent:
Inventing misogynist insults, inventing conspiracy theories… Is is any wonder her prime ministership was so disastrously divisive and paranoid?:
True? Gillard, My Story, 2014:
(I ATTENDED the) 2010 annual Minerals Council dinner in Parliament House, while representing prime minister Kevin Rudd. The disputation over the Rudd government’s proposed resources super-profits tax (RSPT) was raging, so it was always going to be like entering a lion’s den. As the guest of honour, I was one of two women seated at the head table. Keeping me company was my chief of staff, Amanda Lampe ... at a hand signal ... (from MCA boss Mitch Hooke) ... a tray of what looked to be rum and coke was brought to the table. A glass was dutifully put in front of every man except (then BHP Billiton CEO) Marius Kloppers, who declined it. Neither Amanda nor I was offered one. The two of us exchanged a look and afterwards uproarious laughter about this rudeness.
Joe Aston, Australian Financial Review, yesterday:
BUT hang on, Gillard didn’t even attend the 2010 MCA dinner. Nobody in the Labor caucus did. She wasn’t representing Rudd that night, she was in his office ending his leadership. Gillard and Lampe did sit at the head table the year previously with Hooke and Kloppers. But the RSPT wasn’t announced until May 2010 — that’s when the miners’ disputation with Labor began. So why was attending the 2009 dinner “like entering a lion’s den”? This is supposed to be an authoritative telling of political history and (Gillard) can’t even get her basic facts straight? ... Hooke remembers the moment (not just the date) very differently. Ian Smith (… then of Newcrest Mining) asked Hooke what he was drinking (Hooke only drinks Bundy and Coke) and whether he could have one. Hooke then asked everyone at the table if they’d like one, including Gillard, who declined on the basis she was about to speak. Hooke’s reply? “So am I — that’s why I need one.” Shortly after, drinks arrived ... and that was that. Or so they thought ... In 2011, Gillard’s version of the story finally circulated back to the MCA. Hooke contacted Lampe’s successor, Ben Hubbard, who assured Hooke he needn’t worry. Hooke still sent Gillard an SMS apologising if any unintended offence had been caused. She never responded.
True? My Story again:
JOHN Howard skilfully rode the political momentum that can be created around asylum-seeker issues at the 2001 election. Coming after the terrorist shock of 9/11 and in the atmosphere of fear that it created, Howard took a hairy-chested political approach and deployed our elite military forces to stop a Norwegian freighter, the Tampa, from bringing rescued asylum-seekers to our shore.
Dennis Shanahan, The Australian, October 1:
JOHN Howard has called on Julia Gillard to correct a “false” claim that he used the September 11 terror attacks to take a “hairy-chested political approach” on asylum-seekers and send SAS troops on to the Norwegian freighter, Tampa ... In fact, the Tampa episode took place weeks before the September 11 attacks in 2001. “Any storyline that we somehow played off Tampa or the September 11 attacks against each other is false and I completely reject it,” Mr Howard told The Australian _yesterday. “The former prime minister has her chronology wrong and should correct the claims in the book.”
