Gillard and PC.

Cartoon: Bill Leak.

In today’s paper there was a surprising statement by Julia Gillard in appearing to come out against political correctness today:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says political correctness is hindering the debate about asylum seekers.

The Federal Government says it will announce a new policy on the issue this week, as a three-month suspension on dealing with asylum claims for people from Sri Lanka expires.

Ms Gillard says people who are anxious about border security should not be labeled racist.

"I'd like to sweep away any sense that people should close down any debate, including this debate, through a sense of self-censorship or political correctness," she said.

"People should feel free to say what they feel and for people to say they're anxious about border security doesn't make them intolerant.
"It certainly doesn't make them a racist it means they're expressing a genuine view."

Now before you all get carried away and start thinking that you no longer have to parse and edit carefully every statement you all make in order to ensure that it is so damn meaningless that there is no possibility that it carries any hint of, likely, possible, potential, or remotely conceivable offense to any person, thing, or thought in the past, present, or several generations into the future, think again. Julie babes is lining up to solve the immigration problem, er um I mean well um er resolve the boat people debate.

You see, under the Howard regime with (according to its critics, including Julia) its racist, vicious, heartless, uncaring attitudes, (not that there is anything with that under the new thinking) there were no boats arriving. Under the new compassionate policies she had nothing to do with despite being 2ic Labor, boats were arriving every other day, and worse still the bloody press were saying so, and people were starting to get pissed off about it.

In order to get these people back on side and win the next election she wants to give the appearance of solving the problem. The trouble is polls show many voters want a tougher system, so she really has to convince them she can stop it but that could alienate left-leaning Labor voters, so she has to convince them that nothing will change.

Good luck on that Julia, being a populist and not having any underlying philosophical anchor point can be a real bastard.