Damn. I really wanted Julia Gillard to win the Labor leadership. But she’s pulled out in the interests of ‘party unity’. I think she should have at least stood. But perhaps if she stood and lost, Beazley couldn’t have nominated her as Deputy and maybe he will. I hope so. I’m certainly ready for a young woman and I can’t believe we’re getting the same old man with the same old policies. It wasn’t that Latham’s change didn’t work, it was that he only had a half-hearted go at it. It was a huge compromise, all over the shop. Bring on the Greens.
Anyhow, I guess that means she’s got a very good chance next time when she has more experience behind her, and hopefully she’ll be given a serious portfolio so she can contribute in a major way. The next few years are not going to pretty one the Senate is run by the government, but some people have suggested to me that we won’t see serious radicalism in the Australian population until we lose a few rights again, and I’d say that’ll happen pretty soon. My prediction is that we’ll lose access to legal abortion first, and that saddens me doubly because I’ve always been really proud that it was a relative of mine who brought that into law here in the first place.