In 31 days, Julia Gillard hopes to be elected deputy prime minister of Australia. So it is hard to understand why she is giving many voters the clear impression she is now evasive about her political past. Ms. Gillard, 46, was once a member of Socialist Forum, a group formed for disaffected members of the Communist Party to join the Labor Party. There is no suprise in that, nor any reason for her to try to hide her connection to a lawful political organisation. The Howard Government some days ago revealed Ms Gillard's association with the Socialist Forum.
The forum's original statement of identity described itself as "An organisation of Socialist Activists". It declared "we need more than minor tinkering with the existing capitalist system if we are to make Australian society more just and equal".
Ms Gillard at first dismissed her association with it as a distant remnant of her university days when she was in her early 20's. She said she was a typist and performed clerical duties, and quit her membership "many a long year ago". But she has been forced to modify her story under questioning over the past couple of weeks, including when the Herald Sun this week put to her evidence to the contrary. But she still seeks to minimise her involvement by saying that demands of her legal career took most of her time.
Yet, records show that in 1994 she was a member of the Forum's management committee and that she remained a member from 1998 until 2002 when it merged with the Fabian society. The documents contain other evidence of her considerable involvement as an active member of the organisation. So what? Most Australians would take the view that the days of the cry of "Reds under the Bed" are long gone. Had Ms Gillard been totally upfront about her association with the Forum from the outset, many would have dismissed it as mattering not a jot. Instead her evasiveness has raised questions about her political honesty.
