I reckon you've got that right CJ, but the style may not be so hard to take.

Custard, you have my sympathy. The sight of the peroxide blond, in a pastel suit of course, & that oddly deep redhead, in a dark suit, [probably], saying cheese would be hard to take, in any context.

I'm waiting for the sight of Julia, in a flack jacket, in Afghanistan, trying to look like a commander in chief. Probably no more incongruent that Ruddy looked in fact.

I wonder what it will do for recruitment?

CJM... "I very much doubt that the ALP government will be any better under Gillard's leadership than Rudd's"... better? hardly, but maybe slightly differently focussed.

We have Swan and Gillard, half the 'kitchen cabinet' that made all the decisions that so few seem to like, so we cannot really expect to see drastic change can we?

But Rudd miscalculated on his foolishly titled 'super profits tax' when he thought he'd have to tough it out because everyone was so fed up with his abandoning of the 'global future' that he had to be seen to be 'strong' on something.... anything beyond giving us all a personal chaplain each.

So now we are conning ourselves into pretending that it matters at all that we have a female PM 'at last'.... and various other trivial matters that the meeja will pick up on and highlight till well past their readers are sick of reading it...like... 'she's not going to live in The Lodge' oh dear, how long since that has happened? Apart from Howard... Chifley probably, who cares?

Meanwhile, the issues of state will be uninspected, as always, while opinion writers (paid ones that newspaper readers think are vital) drone on about all sorts of emptyness.

Had the Qld press covered the Goss years, years ago, then the tales from those days would have been available for others to read and learn about the true nature of Rudd, and he'd never have got the gig in 2006, but when 'bright shiny things' come on the scene, the meeja and readers prefer to watch them, and bottle the smoke, and gaze transfixed into the shattered mirrors of dreams lying all around.

Will the analysis of Gillard be any better?

She will hardly bring Macklin to abandon Howard's 'deserving poor' attitudes, we will not have the troops 'home by xmas', the miners will get off scott free, the BER will evaporate as an issue, hospital 'reform' will restart since few want yet another Commonwealth run fiasco-like insulation and BER, and the 'boat people'...well, she possibly will ramp that up as Abbott does.

["I'm waiting for the sight of Julia, in a flack jacket, in Afghanistan, trying to look like a commander in chief. Probably no more incongruent that Ruddy looked in fact."]

The CiC of Australia's defence forces is HM Elizabeth II, or in HM's absence, the Governor General assumes the position.

We're not fully Seppo yet thank heavens and with a bit of confidence in our own ways, we may be able to stave off further assimilation, in frigid difference to their blanketing high impact domination of our popular media that lulls so many into belief.

Enjoyed the article - thought it was a fair assessment of the situation - both the man and the mines. The powerbrokers are short sighted. If Rudd's communication was 'off' what was Gillard doing about it - as an effective 2nd in command? Her skills (depending on your point of view) haven't done him any favours. All up, good for the green vote come the elections.

I am a contractor to the mining industry, one who is at the end of a very long chain.
I have been waiting for the missing link and other projects and new mines to start. When the question of how much tax was to be paid by the mines. The work dried up.
I traveled 2500km to take up a contract in Canberra, from the tropics to the cold.
I knew the mines would baulk at at any change to the tax paid.
We got a follow on in the past. This has been dwindling for some years.
As has been previously stated the mining industry has a return of 47% as compared to 11% of other industry. Now they have been asked to negotiate a fair tax on that income.
Do we get this opportunity on our income?
Have a look at the amount of material that is dragged from the ground,look at the size of the holes, drag lines the size of three story buildings and a track footprint of a football oval looking like matchbox toys in the bottom of these scars in the earth.
These are our minerials, yours and mine, where is our share?
Kevin did ask for our share.
*-As our elected representive should. -*
It has cost him the top job, it will cost us more.
The tears he cried were for us too, for our democracy,for each of us.
The fat cats have won again, to rip us off to fatten their pockets.
Australia you have dung on your faces.
I have been a Labour supporter for nearly 50 years, I am no longer in a union. I have lost the faith.....
"Queen Gillard" your humble servant beggs you to restore our Kevin to the negotion table of our mining assets - to at least give some creditability back to the labour party.
Cheers!