julie bishop, page-48

fair enough vistica....

I respect your opinion.

However I do feel that when Gillard made that statement "no carbon tax under a government I lead", she meant that in the sense that she fully expected to lead a majority government.

She also said in the very next sentence "however I am committed to an emissions trading scheme". It seems unfair that the later bit about bringing in an ETS rarely gets quoted by the media because it gives full context to her position.

It is important because the carbon tax, as negotiated with the Greens was only ever going to be temporary, and it was a scheduled interim measure before the full emissions trading scheme was introduced as part of the same scheme.

Gillard did campaigned on an ETS in the election of 2010 and she intended to deliver it and the legislation did deliver on it.

I think these are failures of communication rather than being a liar and it can't be all her fault.

I understand how you've formed that view however but it seems the media was a bit unfair to portray her that way and not explain the reasons for her change in position, and explain how minority government works, in that previous positions come under negotiation. The shift to a temporary carbon tax, given her commitment to an ETS, wasn't a big shift in her mind. The media didn't see it that way, it hammered away and Abbott hammered away on the Liar point.

The irony is that Abbott told Windsor he'd "do anything" to gain government. Anything? Surely that would include a carbon tax, which he'd previously recommended rather than an ETS.

Abbott is on the record of saying he backed a carbon tax over an ETS. Not in the 2010 election, but prior to it when the ETS was first being discussed and Turnbull was Turnbull is on the record for backing an ETS. Then Turnbull got rolled.

We aren't used to minority governments being formed. Gillard didn't communicate how this process worked... it seems she just assumed we'd get that.

Unfortunately Gillard was unable to get her message across in the media. Then she got out of touch with the media storm and the barrage of abuse, the slogans using her name as a liar etc...and this continued with her period in government and she was focussed on negotiating her legislation through the Parliament. In a minority government, each piece must be negotiated. It was a huge task.

Because she was under such tremendous sustained attack, she just put her head down and worked through it, not realising how she was being perceived.

I think history will be kinder on Gillard, she was far from perfect, but she still isn't IMO a liar over the carbon tax. But that's my opinion.