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@i-need-a-martini wrote:

I think you are missing the context.

 

The discussion was about public comments about womens looks/dress. GGs comments (in her own call-a-shovel-a-shovel way) were basically saying that JG needed to understand her body and not get trapped dressing in a way that was expected cause it didn't suit her.

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Here it is, in context:

ULIAN EVANS: My question is to Toby Ralph and the rest of the panel. Our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, seems to have a really major image problem. She just doesn't seem to be able to connect with voters, as evidenced every fortnight by her persistently appalling polling figures. I'm interested to know, particularly from Toby, if you were on her staff what advice would you give the PM?

TOBY RALPH: Experiment with truth. I think she's run out of... Run out of other options at this stage. She's in trouble. She's never quite found herself. She's always been trying to fend off the independents, hang on to the balance of power, keep her saboteurs in her own party on side, fight Tony Abbott, who's defining her, try and keep Andrew Wilkie happy. It's a tough, tough job and she's never really seemed to be herself since she took that job. I think things are desperate and she will have to experiment with truth.

TONY JONES: Let me ask you this - you famously said, 'I'm a taxi, flag me down and I'll take you wherever you want to go.' That seems to be your motto. Let's say Julia Gillard flagged you down. would you pick her up?

TOBY RALPH: Absolutely.

TONY JONES: So you'd take that on?

TOBY RALPH: Absolutely.

TONY JONES: In spite of the fact you disagree with everything she thinks?

TOBY RALPH: I don't disagree with everything she thinks. I don't even know everything she thinks. But, yes, I'd take that gig on, absolutely, Tony.

TONY JONES: What would you actually do? In the first day in the office, what would you say to her, apart from 'Experiment with the truth', which she would regard as a political slogan?

TOBY RALPH: I guess I'd want a conversation about what she really thinks and believes. And I'd like to know what's genuinely there because I don't, I don't know it as an individual at the moment.

TONY JONES: Germaine.

GERMAINE GREER: Look, it's important to realise that Julia Gillard is part of a coalition. What that means is that she has to negotiate every single policy position. What that means is camel trading on the floor. It happens to be what she's good at. You can say, 'We want to know what she really, really believes.' In fact, it's irrelevant because whatever she really, really believes is not what's going to happen. I agree with you that she was very badly directed by Arbib and Albanese. They were worried about her dry, matter of fact, unglamorous style that she showed us when Rudd was away at the Bali conference, which was a complete bust. And she was there 5:00 in the morning on the breakfast television, the voice of common sense. And we thought, 'We really like her.' She's not in love with the sound of her own voice, which clearly Rudd was. She never said 20 words when 5 words would do. There are lots of good things about her. She's an administrator, she gets things done, she understands that she has to constantly get people on side, give people jobs to do, make sure that they do them. It's unglamorous, it's not star material but it's what she's been doing. What I want her to do is get rid of those bloody jackets!

TONY JONES: She should go to him for political advice and you for fashion advice?

GERMAINE GREER: No, it's not even fashion. They don't fit. Every time she turns around, you've got that strange horizontal crease which means they're cut too narrow in the hips. You've got a big **bleep**, Julia, just get on with it.