Shadow Minister gets the prize.Best rebuttal yet.

DP you are right she did not know it would be a hung Parliament and the greens would, along with independents force her hand.
But look at SOG his post is his best, not balanced, no intention of being so.
Gillards crime is being the hand that held the knife.
For others it is being a woman.
And other not being a Conservative.
My gripe? she is not a leader.
Now you keep pushing your point but never ignore public opinion, it drives election victory,s and Turnbull is in charge of that.

From: Chek Ling
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2011
To: letters Australian
Subject: Gillard's lie, Abbott's mortal sin

Enough, your editorial laments today. How timely! I too fear that our political culture is being recklessly debased.
As a non-native speaker, I consulted my Oxford Dictionary. Lie: Intentional false statement. Can we say, beyond reasonable doubt, that our PM lied about the carbon tax? Her backers in the ALP machine all thought then that the first female PM was gonna shoo it in. As well she probably believed then that she could pull a rabbit out of the climate change warren. There is no doubt she changed her mind. Most minority government Prime Ministers would in the face of demise if the Greens’ demand were not met.
Yet the polls tell us that Tony Abbott is succeeding in urging us to accept that the PM has lied. But he is in fact the liar, the deliberate liar. He has presented no evidence, just the sort of slogans we in the west often associate with leaders of countries like North Korea.
Should Abbott succeed in ousting our government, would we then have added a new facade to our traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs - Thou shalt lie, and lie, and lie again, until thou shalt be made the leader of all men.
What would Archbishop Pell think then? A big venial sin, thirteen Hail Marys and let’s move on?

That letter was not published, of course. Since then Louis Nowra has written regarding David Marr's Quarterly Essay on Abbott that this was one occasion when Marr did not go far enough. In Louis' view, Abbott would sell his soul to become PM, a reminder of what Tony Windor revealed about Abbott's offer to him before Gillard formed government.

It seems some of us only argue to win, like the worst of our pollies: Sophie M and Costello's successor are striking examples in their Q & A behaviour - brazen, shameless, and unshamable.

Have we lost the sense of fairness, or independent thought, always jumping on the latest bandwagon carrying Pauline Hanson or Alan Jones?

It can be argued that Julia Gillard did not lie, but it is a pretty
weak argument. She could have told the Greens that what they were
asking was impossible and any dill would know that the greens would
not have withdrawn their support. They would NEVER support Abbott.

Gillard knew that, but she used it to impose a CO2 tax.
That is what turned a change of mind into a lie.

Belly she still had options she chose not to use.

Refusing to break a commitment and making a stand on the point could have had her claiming the high moral ground and maybe started a reversal of the ever worsening breakdown of trust between pollies and the rest of the population. Instead Julia went for the broken commitment and entrenching the pattern of broken commitments (pre-meditated or not).

R0bert

What a pile of codswallop.

Did Gillard lie? Of course she did. Was it intentional? Of course it was.

Did the Greens force her hand on a CO2 tax? Of course not.

Come on people, just how far do you want to stretch the bounds of credulity?

I find it incredible that you lefties think you can pull yet another lie, that is that Gillard did not lie. She has told us that she always wanted a price on carbon dioxide, the only trouble was she had to win an election to get it.

Would she tell any lie, or do any dead, no matter how foul to win? Just a quick look at her personality & record tells us she most definitely would.

Did the Greens force her to the carbon tax, of course not. Are any of you telling me the Greens were going to vote with the Libs, if she had said no? Pigs might fly. She had the Greens locked up tight. They had no where else to go, & she damn well knew it. It was the riffraff independents she had to buy, which she did no problem. Lets face it they are probably the best MPs money can buy.

So come off the raw prawn kiddies, we won't fall for it. You can perhaps kid yourselves that your horrible leader is all kindness & light, but it won't wash with thinking people.

Still no harm in trying, & I've no doubt you'll try another dozen tacks to try to convince yourself, [& the rest of Oz], that she is a nice lady, just a victim of circumstances.

Duck folks, the comes a squadron of flying pigs.