sonofgloin,

If Tony's escapade with Hetty Verolme's electricity bill recently is an example of political competency, then good luck to him (and us). When I see that kind of foolish stunt, it makes me wonder if he should be in politics at all.

Regarding your snow.

An increase in the frequency of unusual and extreme weather events is an indicator of global warming...yes, I know you believe that an unusual event that happens to consist of "cold extremes" must preclude warming, but it doesn't.

its sad and funny seeing ol john boy coward/howard..*back on tv
i cant help but compare him to juliar..lol

anyhow im going to be listening to the speaches
comparing the person/words

[lol in ya dreams..

they all''been to bali too'
how many paid their own way
how much this STAGED* media production costing us..all up?

yep ya jusyt cant help yourselves
nose in the trough

yeah..lol
i been to bali too
but paid my own way

This talk about how dreadful it was in the 50s for women is just a lot of nonsense.

Have you forgotten that they did not HAVE to go to work ?
Why was that ? Well it was because the dopey feminists were not
pushing for loans to be made available on both incomes !
They had the freedom of choice removed.

They were too stupid to see what the result would be.
They simply could not be told that if you borrow on two incomes you
MUST HAVE two incomes to repay.
The result is women frantically trying to manage work, getting
children to child care, paying for child care, trying to manage
picking up after child care.
Some are not even coming out ahead after child care costs.

You don't need me to tell you about all the hassles and expense.

I don't remember if it was a labour or liberal government that forced
the lending authorities to lend on both incomes.

However for the developers, my my, what a bonanza !
Now we can run costs up as there are now two incomes to pay for our
higher costs (err charges) so happy days are here again.

The basic rule is costs will rise to meet the amount of money available.

Okay this is getting a little surreal.

I log on this morning and the hit count is over 787,000 and the speech has taken first place in the 'Most Popular – All Categories' on Youtube which lists the strongest trending recently uploaded videos.

Quite extraordinary.

The ABC's Youtube channel has loaded nearly 50,000 individual clips and I would wager none have had a twentieth of the response the Gillard video has garnered. Peter Slipper's resignation received less than a thousand.

Belly commented earlier that; “Social media now will never again be replaced as the most honest form of tapping public opinion.” and I think to a degree he is right yet the popularity of the clip has me struggling to find an explanation. The best I can come up with is the high hit rates on the site for videos showing bullies getting their comeuppance.

It is fairly obvious that many Australian commentators who have been mired in the cut and thrust of federal politics have little appreciation of how well this speech stands on its own merits.

It is too early to tell if it is going to be in any way pivotal but those dismissing it have their heads in the sand I'm afraid.

Stands on it's own merits is the key csteele.

It is great taken out of it's context. It stands on it's own, and it doesn't even need to be about politics per se.

It is a fantastic serve! It's what every woman would like to say to Tony Abbot, or their most hated boss or ex lover.

That's the level it's resonating at. I seriously don't see it as a political hit, politics is just not cool for that demographic, feminism less so.

One thing missed in the commentary is that imagine if any male politician had given any female politician such a serve, it would be considered a bullying act, and beyond the pale. So while we're all talking about sexism, lets not forget she was able to make such an attack because of her gender.

The dynamic of the theater was Tony cowering under the strong woman and people cheered at the naughty little boy getting a telling off. Turn that around if Tony gave a serve to Julia and you'd have a wife beating bully misogynist attacking a poor defenseless woman.

Imagine if Tony had found in his office similar things as in Plibersek's office, it would have been included in Julia's speech like the standing next to signs. The speech would have been even better had she cut out a lot of that circumstantial evidence, and dropped the misogyny and kept the sexist. Well, it would have been more accurate, but the crowd she was playing to wouldn't have enjoyed it so much.

You are all watching political World Championship Wrestling.With the aid of the media this is the distraction from the truth ie The financial elites have stolen $ billions from us with money printing and scams like selling sub-prime mortages to our super funds.The only people being gaoled are Occupy Protestors.

They continue to do it and not a single person has been charged or gaoled.Not only are the big banksters too big to fail,it seems that they are also too big to gaol.

While Labor are totally useless,corrupt and incompetent ,the Coalition will not bring about the necessary financial reform to free this country from needless debt.