Deane is right. Who would trust Ghoullia? She is not only politically inexperienced, clearly out of touch with the real world, as her comments about 'horrible' foreign backpackers that Deane pointed out rightly showed, but she is completely divorced from the values that mainstream Australian society holds dear. Her decision to live in a de facto relationship with her hair products 'partner' is evidence of this.

One must remember that if a Labor Government were in power in Canberra, Julia Gillard would be second in charge. If Kevin were to kick the bucket or resign (maybe by becoming involved in some torid tax-payer funded strip club jaunt), she would be PM. Australians thinking of voting labor really need to ask themselves, do they want Ghoulia as PM?

I think the reason why the labor party is side-lining her is because they know she is unpopular. She is only there to placate the socialist and left-leaning interests that keep the Labor Party in the game. We all know that the Labor party would happily ditch its socialist roots if it could. If it had some balls, it would ditch Ghoulia too. And it wouldn't be too soon.

What the hell does her marital status have to do with anything? I think you'll find that defacto relationships are growing in numbers, so I don't know how you got the "out of touch with community standards" on that one.

Pick at her policies, attack her ideas, play the ball not the woman people.

I wouldn't have thought a weekly appearance on the Today Show as deputy leader was being off the campaign trail. This morning she revealed why she hadn't commented on Rudd's visit to the New York strip club. Like most of the electorate she thought it was both ridiculously funny and incongruous, given Rudd's character, w3hich I'd say she knew pretty well.
As for the ALP and socialism - the ALP is socialist because it has a heart, which is not something you can say about Howard's bunch of cruel, callous Conservatives by any stretch of the inmagination.

It appears that Ms Gillard represents feminist not women in general. You often see this when silence takes place when women are portrayed as sex objects and yet the feminist scream if they perceive some bias towards men. Feminist are not interested in human rights just power. They have more double standards than most.

Here's a question:

How loud would Julia have screeched and how much media attention would she have been given if it was John or Alexander who had had a sordid little adventure in a NY lap-dancing joint?

It would appear that Julia Gillard does have what it takes, to be the next deputy Prime Minister. This being shown by the attempts of rightwing bloggers on here, to demean her.