Gillard and more WA INC School of fundraising.

Cartoon; by Nicholson.

The Courier Mail seems to be following up on the Gillard fundraising rort with a report on this issue again today headed “Julia Gillard spends $9000 of ours to make $10,000 for ALP.” It seems unusual for a new leader, especially a Labor one not to get an extended ‘press honeymoon’ but on this occasion it is not happening for Julia up here, at least not at the moment. It may be something to do with Rudd being from Queensland, but it is a little difficult to reconcile with the enthusiasm her ascendency was greeted with at first:

JULIA Gillard's trip to Brisbane earned the ALP almost as much as it cost taxpayers to send her here.

The Prime Minister's office yesterday defended Ms Gillard's fly-in-fly out visit for a $40-a-head Labor function on Tuesday night, saying the use of the jet was in line with the usual processes that have been the same under successive governments.

Labor pointed to former Prime Minister John Howard's use of the jet, including to attend the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2006.

However the Opposition said the ALP should reimburse taxpayers for the cost of the flights, saying it would have almost have been easier on the public purse if the Prime Minister made a donation to the party from government coffers.

The $9000 return flight to Brisbane is just shy of the estimated $10,000 collected from the 250 people who attended the function for Labor MP Yvette D'Ath at the Australian Workers Union watering hole in the CBD.

In attendance was state AWU boss Bill Ludwig, whose support, along with the party's national Right, was the key to delivering Ms Gillard the prime ministership last week.

Gillard was as culpable as Rudd in the actions leading up to the opinion polls that indicate that most people would vote for a dose of clap rather than Labor, even to the point where Abbott was looking good. Her deputy, Wayne Swan is the sole surviving member of the ‘kitchen cabinet’ or ‘gang of four’ to survive the coup. The term political assassination is not appropriate here as Rudd was a dead man walking at the time and the kindest thing to do was put the poor bastard out of his misery.

It remains though, totally hypocritical to replace him with Gillard and keep Swan in a leadership position, as they were the architects of the situation Labor found it self in. The only reasonable explanation for doing so would be that they hoped a woman could drag them over the line if nobody looked too hard at her record, or there was nobody else more competent to do the job.

Perhaps there is a level of hypocrisy beyond which even the liberal media will not sink.