January 29, 2012
Dramatic days ... Julia Gillard, condemned her sacked staffer yesterday. Photo: Craig Sillitoe
JULIA GILLARD will stake her government's future on its economic credentials this week as she tries to put the debacle over her office's involvement in the Australia Day protest behind her.
The Prime Minister will try to steal John Howard's promise of interest rates being lower under a Coalition government by hammering home the message that interest rates, taxes and unemployment are all lower under her government.
The economy was the ''killing floor'' for all arguments the government would make this year, a senior source told The Sun-Herald.
Ms Gillard is expected to point out that Australia had recently been awarded a triple gold rating by all three global ratings agencies - a feat not achieved by the Howard government - when she addresses a lunch held by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.
The speech was intended to be Ms Gillard's first major appearance for the year and is an attempt to present her as more prime ministerial and above the day-to-day cut and thrust of politics.
Ms Gillard's focus signals that the government's message this year will be all about the comparatively well-performing Australian economy.
With the international outlook again gloomy, Labor will maximise its opportunities to remind people about its efforts at keeping Australia out of trouble during the global financial crisis.
Ms Gillard yesterday held a defiant press conference in which she described as ''grossly unacceptable conduct'' the actions of her now former press secretary, Tony Hodges, in relaying comments made by the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, to the union official Kim Sattler.
She said the point of Mr Hodges's call to Ms Sattler - whose role in Thursday's events remained unknown until yesterday - had been to suggest indigenous leaders should respond to comments made by Mr Abbott about the future of the tent embassy.
That telephone call sparked a chain of events that led to the evacuation of Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott from a restaurant that was set upon by angry protesters.
Ms Gillard said neither she nor her staff were aware of Mr Hodges's actions until he confessed what he had done to senior staff on Friday.
''Mr Hodges, in taking these actions, acted alone and his actions were not authorised. Clearly they are viewed by me as unacceptable,'' Ms Gillard said.
One of the founders of the tent embassy, Michael Anderson, said he believed the episode was a set-up.
''Someone set us up. They set the Prime Minister up. They set Abbott up,'' he said. ''And they knew that feelings and emotions were running high here and I think they knew that reaction would occur.''
Mr Abbott called for a police investigation yesterday, saying ''a number of offences would've been committed''.
''I think that when you've got a serious security breach involving our nation's leaders, yes, it does have to be fully investigated and obviously what triggered it has to be fully investigated and whether the whole thing was triggered by the Prime Minister's office, perhaps to gain some kind of political advantage, well, that needs to be fully investigated by the police,'' he said before Ms Gillard's news conference.
But Ms Gillard hit back at his comments, saying it was ''absolutely typical of Mr Abbott's negativity and his tendency to go too far''.
''For it to be insinuated that I would play some role in disrupting an event to recognise Australians who had performed miracles during a natural disaster is deeply offensive,'' she said.
After Ms Gillard's press conference, a spokesman for Mr Abbott said: ''Only the Coalition can provide Australia with a government that concentrates on the concerns of ordinary Australians rather than Labor's internal divisions and dirty tricks.''
Late yesterday afternoon a spokeswoman for the Australian Federal Police said: ''In order to investigate we need a referral. The AFP has not received a referral in relation to this matter.''
