@JuliaGillard as big a spinmeister as Kevin Rudd?

Andrew Bolt has for a long time spoken of his regard for Julia Gillard, even if he disagreed with her politics. But he finds her asylum seeker speech so full of spin and dishonesty that he is more than a little disappointed in her. I THOUGHT Julia Gillard would finally rid us of Kevin Rudd’s noxious spin and brazen lies. But after her speech on boat people, I feel sick. The woman I’ve praised this past week for warmth and directness has started her reign with the same cold deceit with which Rudd ended his. Smoother delivery, sure, but the spin is just as shameless. Just as offensive in treating voters as fools. Turns out Rudd’s spin wasn’t just his, after all, but part of the new Labor brand. The worst of it - in a speech riddled with this cancer - came when Gillard announced she hoped one day to send all boat people to East Timor for processing, so they couldn’t be sure they’d end up here for the $10,000 they’d paid a people smuggler. Sound familiar? Yes, it’s the same “Pacific Solution” John Howard once had and which Gillard condemned year after year as cruel, costly and useless. Here she is just last year: “We also said to the Australian people ... we were going to end the Pacific Solution which had cost so much money for so little result.” Here she is in 2007: “We have committed to ending the so-called Pacific Solution, we would not have offshore processing in Manus Island and Nauru.” So the difference now is ... ? Well, Gillard’s plan is to send boat people this time not to Nauru but East Timor, which to the Left is a holy land. Think Gusmao. Viva the Revolution! You can read the rest of it here. Interesting too that The West's Paul Murray is less than impressed with her "fix" of the resources super-profits tax, especially as it effects WA: God - or Whoever is carrying out this valuable public service in Canberra these days - please save us from economists bearing "elegant" taxes. It's probably a significant crime against the language to describe any tax as elegant, but that's exactly how a bunch of fiscal ideologues including Professor Ross Garnaut described Labor's resources super profits tax that Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has finally conceded was a "genuine risk" to projects in her State. We're going to need some sort of intervention, divine or otherwise, to save us from the inelegant dog's breakfast that Julia Gillard has served up in place of the tax that killed off Kevin Rudd's prime ministership. Ms Gillard has replaced a deeply flawed impost with a nonsense. If this is an example of her problem-solving abilities, we're in for a rocky ride.

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