The program where Tony Jones gets to ask the questions and talk about himself

THE PM gets a lecture on how the green left collective at the ABC would conduct diplomacy.

From the Q&A website:

Q&A Adventures in Democracy. About the show: On Q&A the audience gets to ask the questions.

Some democracy. On Monday night's program with Julia Gillard. Questions from the audience: 19. Questions from Tony Jones: 54. Highlight:

Jones: The questioner asked about the tearful part of the speech and that was right at the end when you were talking about seeing a man land on the moon. What was it that brought a tear to your eye, frankly, about that?

Gillard: In an occasion like the Congress, there was a lot of emotion and warmth in the room.

Jones: Did you get carried away by the personal warmth shown to you?

Gillard: No, I just think I was reflecting the nature of the occasion and I did want to say to that very special place, be bold.

Jones: Briefly, when I was a small boy my first impression of America was of the Vietnam War and the fact that you -- Australians -- were being conscripted to go and fight in this war and there were demonstrations in streets, and the notion of all the way with LBJ, and at that time Labor figures were leading the demonstrations. There's no sort of reflection of any of that Labor tradition in your speech, a sort of cynicism about American power.

Gillard: Now, Tony, I'm going to have to be unkind and say that's because you're older than me.

Jones: Not that much.

Gillard: Well, no, it's not that much now that we're this age but when you're little it is a fair bit. I don't remember the Vietnam moratorium demonstrations. I just don't. I think the big demonstrations were 1968, 1969. I was seven and eight years old. I don't remember them. So that is not my first impression of America. Now.

Jones: Your Labor colleagues didn't bring you up to speed on that?

Gillard: I didn't have Jim Cairns lecturing in my primary school in South Australia. I'm sorry to disappoint you.

David Williamson's Don Parties On:

Mal: The 60s were magic in their way, weren't they? Hand to hand combat on the battlefield of social change. Our kids resent it, you know. It's not their fault they were born into an era of grey managerialism, but they missed the party and they resent it.

Mal: Their only defence is to deride it and us . . . depict it as just sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

Don: Which it was. But it was so much more.

Don: The street marches against the Vietnam War. Police horses charging at us and us holding our ranks. We had f . . king courage and fire and we were right. The Vietnam War was hideous bullshit. We fought it mate. We fought it. I loved it. I loved every moment of it. There was purpose. There was idealism. There was selflessness. There was comradeship. There was camaraderie.

Mal: How did we f . . k up our lives so much? How did it all start so brilliantly and go so wrong?

Howard's Australia. Greg Barns, Online Opinion, December 2005:

Australia is a backwater, a racist and inward-looking country. It is a nation which periodically makes world headlines for its racist outbursts, whether it be the disgraceful campaign of the Howard government in 2001 to demonise the wretched and the weak who sought sanctuary on our shores, or the racist thugs beat[ing] up anyone who looks as if they are from the Middle East.

Gillard's Australia. Greg Barns on ABC online's The Drum yesterday:

Julia Gillard was also pandering to irrational security fears in that same election. In language eerily reminiscent of the way John Howard used to reject the idea of an apology for indigenous Australians, the Rudd government said that a human rights law would be too divisive!

I can feel a challenge coming on? Kevin Rudd on 3AW yesterday:

It's more likely for me to be captain of the Broncos.

Gillard on June 17 last year:

There's more chance of me becoming the full-forward for the Dogs [Western Bulldogs] than there is any chance of a change in the Labor Party.