Hahaha. This article is a beautiful piece of satire.

The pity is that her gender got the very flawed Julia Gillard to the highest position in the land, a job she was entirely unsuited for and in which she quickly showed her incompetence.

Ferocious feminist and previous loyal Gillard backer, Penny Wong -the new Leader of the Senate- dumped Julia Gillard. Penny Wong helped to axe Gillard because Gillard's policies were wrong and needed to be changed.

<New Senate leader Penny Wong leads list of high-profile defectors from Julia Gillard's camp>
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/new-senate-leader-penny-wong-leads-list-of-high-profile-defectors-from-julia-gillards-camp/story-fni0cx12-1226670634838

Julia Gillard rode the feminist bandwagon for years and she did it well. Now to see if she can get catapulted into a plum job to go with all of that $$Super and ex-PM benefits. Ex-Qld Premier Anna Bligh might like to advise Julia on that.

The most likely reasons for Gillard's downfall were that voters didn't forgive her for the coup against the "elected" PM and she never seemed comfortable with the job, even to old comrades like me, Misogyny is a glib rationale for the Julia debacle, she didn't demonstrate the political skills to succeed in office.

imajulianutter,

"This article is a beautiful piece of satire." Agreed, it must be satirical.

I think that's an excellent wrap up Charlie. Enjoyed reading it.

The Labor party has for many years been fobbing off their faults and differences onto various personalities rather than taking responsibility for deep flaws, divisions and crises of knowing exactly what they stand for, but no individual has had to put up with as much as Gillard during her term and she got it from all quarters. Rudd has made himself once again the best person for the job by continually working against her, aided by the same biased press which will now turn against him.

Rudd has an overwhelming need to be in control due to the fact that he is easily frustrated with what he might see as sub par performances and tends to take over and try to do everything. This has led in the past to him becoming isolated and uncommunicative. Three to four hours sleep isn't enough and the idea that others can conform to his long working hours insane. He is however able to present himself extremely well, he knows how to win friends and influence people, and many are happy to buy the image he sells in the same superficial way they might barrack for their favourite football team. He's a great campaigner and that's where he's really in his element.

The mainstream press will probably give him a very short honeymoon. I imagine new Rudd will want to call an election as soon as possible to make the most of things before they start to really get stuck into him the way they did Gillard, and old Rudd before that.

Logic says that Rudd should go for an earlier election. Rudd's ego could over-rule sense and the advice he must be getting. After only minutes as PM Rudd's ego was already showing in the House. Rudd also likes a trip or few, to grandstand internationally.

A leopard doesn't change its spots so easily. Caucus will have to ride Rudd hard to have any hope of keeping him in line. An early election is the obvious best for Labor, but will Rudd's rapidly ballooning ego allow for it? The genie is now out of the bottle.

I expect we're going to get plenty of these attempts to re-write history over the next weeks, months and years.

Gillard lost because she lost the trust of the electorate. Nothing to do with gender or male egos. She just treated the electorate as fools and, by the time she realised her error, it was too late.

Remember that, after taking out Rudd, she still won, or had an honourable draw, in the subsequent election. At the time the hard-heads in the ALP thought they were headed for a loss. Yet despite running a less than stellar campaign, at least half the electorate were prepared to vote her into office. Her gender, marriage status etc weren't factors then. Men and women alike were prepared to look at her and her policies and make judgements on them. And many if not most liked what they saw or were prepared to give her a chance.

Yet a mere 5 weeks later, she betrayed their trust by declaring a CO2 tax having faithfully promised not to have such a thing. Whatismore, she then proceeded to ignore the outrage and assume that, with an election 3 yrs away, her deception would be long forgotten. She treated the people with contempt and they returned the favour.

But it wasn't forgotten and that's thanks largely to Abbott. Then having lost faith with the electorate, she proceeded to break promise after promise and to demonstrate a complete inability to handle the complexities of the other major issues of the day: the illegal immigrants, the deficit and so on.

It doesn't and didn't matter that she was a she. It does matter that she misled the electorate and never recovered their trust while at the same time proving to be out of her depth. A man would have been treated just as or more harshly.

Nonetheless, it will become an article of faith on your ABC and in the love media that she was a massively successful leader torn down by those evil men. The truth won't get a look in.

The major tide-turning point against Gillard was the media’s handling of the carbon ‘tax’ affair. Instead of investigating the issue to ascertain what was really being said and done, the media backed Abbot’s version all the way.

It relentlessly cheered on his lies about a carbon ‘tax’ and portrayed them as truth. In stark contrast, it relentlessly smeared Gillard’s honesty about a carbon price mechanism (which she publicly advocated pre-election) and portrayed it as a lie about a carbon ‘tax’ (which it never was and still isn’t).

The jury is out on whether or not the media’s lies about Gillard and the carbon ‘tax’ would have sunk a male politician to the same degree. As males are raised to be competitive, there is a tendency to condone, even encourage, lying in men as a regrettable necessity in getting what they want on the path to success. For females, however, who are raised to be agreeable and compliant, lying in women is viewed as a manipulative and deviant perversity.

Saddest of all is that most of the misogyny against Gillard over the carbon ‘tax’, and just about everything else she did, came from women – most of them, I suspect, venting their inner rage against Julia for all the success she achieved and which they squandered from too much complying and agreeing.

That's just silly. Howard/Peacock/Howard/Downer/Howard and almost Costello were derided for years over their behaviour and many never forgave Keating over Hawke.

It is nothing to do with her being a bloody woman, it is her disgusting divisive policies that should never have implemented.

What a crock of special pleading drivel, a "comedy" reality show using her actions as a plot would not filmed as it would be too far fetched. She is a hopeless failure and has only survived in the fake world of "Emily Listed" Labor patronage, her only "real" job she was sacked from "for cause" related to, as she said, "slush funds".

Howard was and is far more abused even though he saved us from the GFC, not that pretender Rudd. Rudd et al just had to spend the money in one of the few countries with a robust banking system and no debt. Initially writing cheques that were paid for by Howard and Costello but now, of most concern being run up on the kids credit card. Money for schools, hospitals frittered away on repayment and interest.

Marilyn

They were derided, yes, but not by those who wield the major influence over public opinion. Howard, in particular, lied his arse off over just about everything - from the GST to the Iraq war to the real reasons for the NT Intervention (which had nothing to do with child abuse).

Yet the mainstream media, even the ABC, pretended to look the other way. Year in, year out Howard could do no wrong. It was only the lefty blogs and rags with much smaller readerships that took him to task.

The media also vastly overrated the Howard-Costello management of the economy, pretending to ignore the revenue windfalls of the Howard era - especially from the GST, the unnecessary privatizations and the worldwide financial boom - while they seriously depleted funding for infrastructure, transport, health, education, social programs and the environment. Again, only the smaller publications and blogs pointed this out.

Yet Gillard has been blasted and derided for every single decision her government has made under her watch, more often than not for decisions that are sound, wise and sensible for the nation.

Whether this howling double standard is over gender or anti-Labor media bias – or (as I suspect) a combination of both – is debatable. But there is definitely a double standard being practised and it’s well past time the Australian electorate woke up to how they are being manipulated.

I loathed Howard but on racism and human rights Gillard is worse.

Now I reckon in my opinion that being dressed in effigy as a dog licking Bush's balls is far more revolting than being asked if your boyfriend is gay because male hair dressers are gay.

I think accusing a whole class of men who wear blue as those who would silence women and destroy their reproductive rights is an obscenity.

Gillard's downfall was certainly related to gender, but not in any simple goodies vs baddies way. It seems to me that:

* If Gillard had been male, some of her male colleagues would have been more ready to tell her to 'pull her head in' and 'get real' when her ideologically-inflated ego became too obtrusive. Perhaps if there had been more women at a high level in the Labor Party they would have performed the same function; perhaps not.

* If Gillard had been a man surrounded by men -- or a woman surrounded by women -- she might have felt less like a special figure singled out for leadership, and more like the first among equals. This might have prevented some of her more egregious blunders.

* If Gillard had been male she would presumably have been less fixated on the gender issue which -- whatever its merits as an argument -- was clearly a major vote-loser for the electorate.

It's unfortunate that we can't re-create the situation for research purposes with a single male leader largely surrounded by female supporters, and see if that works out in a similar way, but I don't know of any parliament in the world where that is the case yet (Scandinavia, perhaps?). But whatever Gillard's gender-related flaws happened to be, they were surely exacerbated by her choice to surround herself with deferential and essentially second-rate men.

Gillard said it herself; her demise was not because of her gender. In fact, it was very probably in spite of her gender.

She was given enormous latitude that no male would have been allowed and she manipulated everyone around her completely ruthlessly.

I posted the following on another thread. Is there any doubt about why we all disliked her so viscerally?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist

Factor 1: Affect

Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Conning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric)
Callousness; lack of empathy
Failure to accept responsibility for his or her own actions

Factor 2: Case history "Socially deviant lifestyle."

Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Parasitic lifestyle
Poor behavioral control
Lack of realistic long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Juvenile delinquency
Early behavior problems
Revocation of conditional release

Traits not correlated with either factor

Promiscuous sexual behavior
Many short-term (marital) relationships
Criminal versatility
Acquired behavioural sociopathy/sociological conditioning (Item 21: a newly identified trait i.e., a person relying on sociological strategies and tricks to deceive)

And yet she had the undying support of the AWU and a few dimbulbs she manipulated, like Conroy and Emerson to the point of being prepared to let the Party be destroyed. Can anyone guess why such hard-nosed men as Bill Ludwig and Paul Howes might have been prepared to let her do that?

She did her best to make Shorten her patsy as well, by coopting his nitwit mother-in-law (it must have burned Bryce's guts to have to swear Rudd in) and his wife, even giving his wife a job as president of a new slush fun...supporter's group.

It didn't work. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I think it boils down to a couple of very major points:

1. The electorate have become, and quite rightly so, sick and tired or the pathetic political tirades espoused by the former leader of the ALP and the purported 'New messiah' from the Libs.
2. Economic management, during the Rudd and Gillard trip within the trenches has been nothing short of dismal. How does any Treasurer lay claim to slaying the GFC monster, whilst at the same time realising that Australia had the best of possible terms of trade, vis Chinese economic growth +9%, commodity prices that were only ever going to increase over time (2007-2011/12) and no real need for any Aus stimulus............a complete mis-management of fiscal policy at the top end.
3. Pandering to the wants and needs of every green, dysfunctional quasi-pseudo scientific real, vis climate change and clean energy mantra.
4. A lack of understanding that 'Joe or Jane' average had little or no interest in international relations and the governments purported need to appear grandiose on the world stage (UN Security Council) was totally misguided,
5. Misguided knowledge and understand of NDIS issues and NAPLAN because of ineffective Ministerial Portfolio management and most importantly,
6. A total disdain for the 'working man/woman' trying to make ends meet despite the rhetoric and dysfunction of policy toward small, medium and industry based enterprise across the broader business cycle in Australia.

Gillard is gone, Rudd is in power, to what end one can only guess. The party may have re-started, but I think the people will speak in volumes on the day of reckoning, despite any date being set.

Geoff, look at your list

1. relying on sociological strategies and tricks to deceive
2. Impulsiviy, irresponsibility
3. Conning/manipulative;Irresponsibility
4, 5, 6. Grandiose sense of self-worth;Callousness; lack of empathy

Then look at the rest. No emotion whatever on being dumped, but a performance of emotion in Parliament the next day. The tirade over the Alan Jones comment on her father was all about her, not about her dad and the only emotion was anger at another manipulator daring to have a go on her turf. Ditto the "misogyny" speech.

We and the ALP and especially the "progressive" people of Australia allowed ourselves to be conned by a genuinely dangerous psychopath. We should be very grateful to Shorten.

Antiseptic, keep that list handy for one of the family law threads. I think I could tick pretty much every item on the list for someone I used to be married to. Interesting.

R0bert

Yep anything that would wear down Gillard, would make ten normal people flee the country.

Marliyn

Actually, the blue-tie joke was a very witty expose on male power and male groupthink. However, because feminist humour is not supposed to exist, a lot of people didn't get the joke – especially those in the camp it was aimed at. It’s also interesting that her final spill happened within days of making this subversive little quip against the kind of vengeful male authority that dogged her every move for three years.

Antiseptic

That psychopath list describes just about everybody, everywhere at any time.

R0bert

You know ... once, just once, I’d love to hear your ex’s side of the story.

Killarney, perhaps it does, in the circles you move in. On the other hand, I don't personally know anyone like that, male or female, and if I did, I soon wouldn't.

Thanks for the confirmation though.

Killarney, it would not take much to guess whos story you would choose to believe either.

R0bert

Antiseptic,

According to the International Institute of Psychopathic Assessment, which revises its list of psychopathology traits on an annual basis, the wearing of blue ties is one of the main indicators of psychopathic disturbance. (Yellow ties and bow ties are fine, however.)

Another is an unnatural obsession with seeing symptoms of psychopathology in people one doesn't like or doesn't agree with.