Who is the real Julia Gillard ? What does she really stand for ? I’m not expecting you to be able to answer these questions because according to recent polling nobody really knows. She has failed to communicate Labor’s message.
Cast your mind back to the 2010 election and the transformation, after weeks of bad polling, from the fake Julia Gillard to the “Real Julia Gillard”. After slipping more than 6% in the polls Labor was haemorrhaging votes. By the third week things had become so critical that a rethink was required, so the “New Julia” was born.
Unfortunately the “New Real Julia” couldn’t hold the election campaign together and on election night seat after seat fell to the Coalition and after days of uncertainty our Parliament was hopelessly hung. It then took a week of negotiation to come up with a deal with three independents to cobble together a minority government held together by the slimmest possible margin. Nothing short of total defeat could have been a worse outcome.