Only one way for Gillard to prove her conviction

Comments on Dennis Shanahan “No doubt about it, Julia's a believer”, 24/03/2011, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/no-doubt-about-it-julias-a-believer/story-e6frgd0x-1226027038168


For the sake of her own interests to win the respect of the Australian public, she needs to have the courage to go to the voters to ask for a clear mandate to do so on a carbon tax that would be the consensus she has argued for and she has persisted with the argument that the public understand and support her carbon tax.

She should not be assuming what she says is what the public believes.

She should not be a ‘dictator’ to the public by saying that the public support her without actual proof that is a form of imposing her will and idea and tax on the public.

Should she go to the poll before legislating a carbon tax and argue that she will introduce a carbon tax if she wins that election, and if and only if she has done that, then she would have the rights in saying that the public support her tax.

Failing to do that, she cannot avoid the fate of being accused as a liar.

Now let’s return to Dennis Shanahan’s title, yes, ‘no doubt about it she is a believer’, but that makes her persuasion of Rudd to dump the CPRS more cynical and her conviction so shallow, and makes her pre-election pledge of no carbon tax under the government she leads so damaging to her reputation and conviction.

And that seems to add further to the confusions the public have over the real and not real Julia.