Shorten answer

BEREFT of answers to hard questions, Julia Gillard has enlisted assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten to take on the task.

BEREFT of answers to hard questions, Julia Gillard has enlisted assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten to take on the task.

One hard question Strewth would like Gillard to answer is "how will you turn around your low popularity and that of your government while pursuing unpopular policies". Shorten had a stab at an answer on Sky News yesterday when he said that John Howard was on the nose in 2000 but still won the 2001 election. Therefore, he seemed to be saying, Gillard has a Lazarus-like ability to recover before the next election. Shorten added that Gillard remains popular in her own Victorian electorate, an interesting comment in light of a poll in the Sunday Herald Sun that found primary support for Gillard in her seat of Lalor had dropped by 18.3 per cent to 46 per cent. "Mark Latham on the other hand six months out from the 2004 poll was completely electable. As we know, the actual election turned out to be very different."

Put your howes on it

PERHAPS Shorten will regret making that particular comparison for Latham is not usually paraded as a hero figure in Labor politics. But at least Shorten has a healthy proportion of financial conservatism in his blood: he rejects the testicular betting style of Transport Workers Union secretary Paul Howes who last week backed Gillard's survival in Labor caucus and also that she would lead the party to the next election. "I have bet my house on it," Howes asserted. Shorten said: "With the size of my mortgage, I am not sure the bank would let me," which didn't sound like a wholehearted endorsement until he added: "Yes I would bet a large stake, I've got no doubt about it."

Tough questions

THERE'S hard questions and soft questions and Gillard probably prefers the latter. So Strewth's obligation is to drum up some tough ones. When will you make an honest man of Tim Mathieson, Julia? All things considered, do you regret moving against Kevin Rudd thereby saving yourself all this grief? What do you really think of Bob Brown, your de facto deputy prime minister? Will the Western Bulldogs ever win another premiership? What's the secret to making really good gravy for the Sunday roast beef? That's enough hard questions, for now. We are beginning to risk falling into Gillard's "crap" category. Take it away Nick Xenophon: "To paraphrase the Prime Minister, if the media writes crap presumably it's often because politicians talk crap."

Bad career choice

IF Brown and his groupies get their inquiry into the media, would it be unseemly for Strewth to demand an inquiry into the abysmal standards of behaviour demonstrated in parliament? Or an inquiry into the Greens' choosey use of facts? Brown would, if he remained consistent, dismiss such calls as part of the "hate media's" agenda. But here at Strewth central, some of us quite like him for his avuncular style and his soothing bedside manner. It's such a pity he quit general medical practice for the unruly realities of public life, holding the balance of power in the Senate, pushing left-wing hobby-horses that have marginal interest among the 90 per cent of voters who don't vote Greens.

Not mincing words

MEANWHILE, in a world far away from our political squabbles, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has had a good, hard shot at China's leadership, responding "They want 100 per cent negative. So they use these words [such as calling his a 'wolf in monk's clothing']. They actually disgrace themselves," he told Rolling Stone magazine. "I mean, childish! Very foolish! Nobody believes them. Usually, with human beings, one part of the brain develops common sense. But with those Chinese leaders, particularly the hardliners, that part of their brain is missing. When I met with President [Barack] Obama last year, I told him, 'You should make a little surgery. Put that part of brain into the Chinese'." That'll go down like a barium meal on an empty stomach in Beijing.

Going nowhere

BACK to local politics. Queensland premier Anna Bligh will not be stepping down before the next state election. According to Treasurer Andrew Fraser she will stay in situ. "Let me say this very firmly: the Premier will be leading the government to the election," Fraser says. "She'll be continuing to show the sort of leadership that she has in the time she's served as the Premier and I'm absolutely certain that that will continue to be the case." But would he follow Howes and bet his house on it?

Only joking

HAVING suppressed a sneaking admiration for Christopher Monckton, the English viscount who has been stirring the climate-change pot with great vigour these past few weeks, Strewth is pleased to read Peter Coleman in The Spectator Australia where he theorises Monckton is cracking a big joke and "humourless" Australians can't see it. "The point is he is an English dandy. Our political commentators do not know how to cope with him," Coleman argues.