Just when you think you have seen it all.

The sight of Julia Gillard walking into that news conference with Bob Carr in tow was hard to beat for political jaw droppers.

The media, encouraged by public and private comments from within the Government, had moved on from the prospect of the former NSW premier ever becoming foreign minister.

Indeed, much of the gallery would have started work on weekend analysis putting the boots into the Prime Minister for comprehensively blowing away all of the benefit of a crushing leadership win over Kevin Rudd.

Laura Tingle in the Financial Review was spot on when she wrote Friday (basing her analysis on all the available evidence) "...instead of using her win over Rudd to get the best quality team into the Cabinet, Julia Gillard… backed off."

And that she "left herself open to perceptions of being told what to do by her colleagues".

Indeed she had, and that is clearly why she changed her mind.

What went on between Tuesday and late Thursday morning is guesswork. But this is probably close to the truth.

The Prime Minister did initially back off under pressure from disgruntled colleagues, as Tingle suggests.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-02/cassidy-gillard-appoints-carr/3865168

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Bollocks. read my comment above...

Federal Finance Minister Penny Wong has defended choosing David Gonski to chair the Future Fund, despite calls by the board of the fund for Peter Costello to fill the job.

Mr Gonski was initially hired to canvas the views of Future Fund board members on a successor to outgoing chairman David Murray, who will step down in three weeks.

Senator Wong has confirmed that incoming chairman Mr Gonski told the Government that Future Fund board members wanted the former treasurer to fill the vacancy.

"There was no recommendation from the report that Mr Gonski did to the Government for any particular person to be appointed," Senator Wong said.

"What he did indicate to us was who board members viewed as the appropriate choice, but Federal Cabinet decided to appoint the best person for the job and we did so on the basis of Mr Gonski's proven track record."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-15/questions-over-gonski-appointment-to-future-fund/3891272

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Peter Costello is still the same Costello that was "lazy" during the Howard years... The best person for the job is Gonski...

"She owes the country an explanation as to why the person she has appointed to chair the Future Fund doesn't think he's the person for the job," he said.

But Julia Gillard has defended the decision.

"If he's asking me to appoint someone other than the best person for the job because they're a member of the Liberal Party, then I won't do it," Ms Gillard said.

"We appointed the best person for the job."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-15/gonski-appointment-sparks-political-row/3891770

Former treasurer Peter Costello says the international reputation of the $73 billion Future Fund has been damaged in the "shemozzle" over appointing the chair of its board of guardians.

Speaking exclusively to ABC1's 7.30, Mr Costello lashed out at the process used to appoint Sydney businessman David Gonski to the plum job; for the lengthy delay and because Mr Gonski had been engaged by the Government to recommend a replacement.

The attack comes after it emerged that Federal Cabinet ignored the advice of the Future Fund board in appointing Mr Gonski ahead of Mr Costello, a current board member and the man who set up the fund in 2006.

Mr Costello denied he was moved to attack the decision because he had missed out on the job.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-15/costello-savages-future-fund-27shemozzle27/3892516 

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Of course Costello's rant is designed to damage the government — and the fund — as much as possible... If Pete had a decent bone in his body, HE WOULD SHUT UP... SHUT UP... SHUT UP PETE, especially as a member of the board!!!! That is OUT OF LINE AND COSTELLO SHOULD BE SACKED FROM THE BOARD according to fiduciary director laws. Gonski is not a bad bloke. he's better than Tony the mad monk. Gonski is actually a great bloke to run THAT gig full of Aussie bux... Tony, and his gang of economic midget, could not run a coin-operated dunny at a school fete... And remember Paul Keating called you "lazy" and he was not wrong on this one...

Former prime minister John Howard has described the selection process for a new Future Fund chairman as ‘‘shambolic’’, saying Peter Costello would have been excellent in the role.

The federal government has appointed David Gonski as the replacement for outgoing Fund chairman David Murray.

But members of the board wanted former treasurer Mr Costello, who was appointed to the board by the Rudd Labor government in December 2009, to replace Mr Murray as chairman.

Speaker Peter Slipper, sporting a spiffy black velvet bow tie trimmed in white, which teamed with his severe robes granted him the appearance of a Transylvanian count, ordered Abbott to withdraw his charge of dishonesty. Abbott did so without conspicuous conviction, adding that all his colleagues shared his sentiment.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon taunted that the Coalition was more interested in ''jobs for Liberal boys'' than talking about employment for others, to which Victorian Liberal Sophie Mirabella feigned offence. She implored Slipper to order Roxon to withdraw ''Liberal boys'', but the count wasn't biting.

Gillard spent much of the day parrying attacks by declaring, sweetly, that her government had merely chosen Gonski because ''he was the best man for the job''. Unspoken was the obverse: Peter Costello clearly wasn't the best person for the job, even if his fellow guardians thought so.

Besides, she might have said, the unmentionable Kevin Rudd, in a flush of weird magnanimity, had appointed Costello to the Future Fund in the first place.

Time to bury the past, obviously. For all concerned.

'I think... that the process has been a shemozzle,'' Mr Costello said on ABC's 7.30 program.

But in an interview with the National Times, Mr Albanese continued Labor's personal attack on Mr Costello, saying he lacked the business qualifications to handle the coveted role.

''What companies has he been asked to be chair of since he retired as the Treasurer of Australia? None. Not a single one,'' the Infrastructure Minister said.

''What positions did John Howard's government appoint Paul Keating to? Paul Keating who transformed the Australian economy in a way that Peter Costello could only dream of.

''Just because you've been a Liberal politician shouldn't mean that you can jump over the top of someone such as David Gonski. So there isn't a sour grape in sight here? Not at all.''

Mr Costello said he viewed the government's criticisms as a tactic to draw attention away from the government's perceived economic management troubles.

Labor senator Doug Cameron said Mr Costello appearance in last night's interview was ''childish'' and it was a ''political myth'' that Mr Costello was a good treasurer.

''What a petulant, childish performance from Peter Costello,'' he said.

''I just thought any chance this guy ever had of getting a leadership position in business has gone,'' he said.

''I think when history's written they'll see that Peter Costello was a fraud.''

''I'm good mates with Barack Obama,'' Ms Gillard was quoted as saying.

''I tell him, 'you think it's tough being African-American? Try being me. Try being an atheist, childless, single woman as prime minister'.''

Ms Gillard was keen to stress that despite the near wipeout of Labor at the Queensland election on March 24 and federal Labor's parlous standing in the opinion polls, it would be premature to write off her government because everything about her prime ministership so far had defied the odds and political orthodoxy.

''If you are judging by normal political rules, it's impossible to explain how I became Prime Minister,'' she was quoted as telling the audience.

''It's impossible to explain how we got through the 2010 election campaign with all the leaking.

''Then I formed a government relying on two conservative country independents.

''And it's impossible to explain how a minority government did the big blockbuster reforms.''

Ms Gillard said because the normal rules did not apply to the past, they should not be used to predict the future.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/pm-v-obama-who-has-it-harder-20120401-1w6qa.html#ixzz1qpya8GJl

...and people making jokes about her "big arse" which actually is quite smaller than Greer's own... ...and "living in sin" at the lodge... and having a media nearly entirely against you... and fighting the catholics (and all the other religious monsters) in the Labor and Liberal (conservative) parties... and having to fight a little Liberal (conservative) upstart spreading shitty popularism....

In fact Julia is cleverer than that... The big blockbuster reforms — not tooted by the media as being ballsy and great for the country — only happened because julia is performing the necessary "Joan of Arc" battles, fully aware of her relative fate. The mining rent tax has to happen, the carbon tax (think of it as "insurance") has to be, the NBN, the school improvement program, and many other discreet policies that have been achieved — including reduction of medicine cost, childcare rebate, increase in pensions and many more. Actually, I believe that Malcolm secretly admires Julia. I may be wrong but I get this strange feeling...

Sure, not all her polices are spot on, including her dealing with the Assange case and the Israel destruction of Palestine. But Little Shit Abbott carry the same shit in his bag of tricks amongst a plethora of doozies that would definitely hurt this nation and increase the gap between rich and poor middle class at a mega rate of knots...

And it will be, tomorrow, a Deus Ex Machina day for the lucky atheist Gillard when Abbott, fumbling and sweating, tries to justify his fifty years of belief in this child-molesting mumbo-jumbo and its prohibitions: condoms, gay marriage, priestly masturbation, sausages on Friday and ‘suffering a witch to live’. What kind of Prime Minister would this bead-clicking jumpy drongo make? What kind of Treasurer the Magic Pudding-promising, stomach-stapled, recovering-choirboy Hockey? What sort of science-cursing Minister the passionate Papist convert Turnbull?

In politics, this kind of resignation usually means a coming scandal foreboded and concealed: I want to spend more time with my butler; I want to go home to Bavaria, sweet nest of my life in the Hitler Youth. Nah, we say in politics — he’s a crook, he’s been sprung, like Obeid, and he’s running for his life.

Abbott faces today his primal test: what is he to say of this jewelled, sibilant Ratsinger who has tipped him in it? Will he say it was God’s will or God’s Vicar’s mutinous apostasy? Either way he will look a damn fool, and all of his life thus far, from his adoration of Santamaria and his teenage cuckolding and abandoned bride and babe to his attempted banning of the morning-after Pill, to be a cruel farce.

What is to be his utterance?

Will he say, like Hamlet, ‘O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!’? Or, like Humphrey, ‘Very courageous, Pontiff.’

Either way he is finished.

You wait and see.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/ratsingers-resignation-spells-the-end-for-the-mad-monk/

Knowing Abbott, he will find the twisted bon mot to keep his budgies ahead of the collapsing fracas ... He will seek counsel with George Pell unless he tries to avoid being seen with the Cardinal till the dust settles... Religion is crap. No matter who dishes it out. If you want to believe in god, do so via your own heart, but give up these narrow-minded organisation that are based on brainwashing your mind with repeat of idiotic exclusive mantras. 

From Christopher Hitchens before he died:

Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" (formerly known as the Inquisition).

In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office ... under the penalty of excommunication." (My italics).

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/ratzinger-was-behind-great-catholic-coverup-20130212-2e9jb.html#ixzz2KewZhP2u

This morning Mr Carr defended his comments and said he thought Mr Danby's criticism was extraordinary.

"For years I was president of Labor Friends of Israel. I wrote a book, My Reading Life, in which is recommend the book of an Auschwitz survivor as the most important book of the last 100 years," Mr Carr told AM.

"My only point about Israel was that settlement activity ought to stop and that the Palestinian status, the increased status in the General Assembly, ought to be not blocked by Australia.

"So that's a position that the foreign minister of every European country would endorse and indeed doesn't fall too much short of the foreign policy position of John Kerry.

"The fact is the influence the pro-Israel lobby was attempting to exert on the government and did until I stood up to them was not in the interests of Israel, not in the interests of the Middle East peace, and was being inappropriately and bullyingly (sic) exercised in the government.

"It needed to be resisted and I'm proud to have done that."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-10/michael-danby-rubbishes-bob-carr-pro-israel-lobby-comments/5379766