A very interesting article by Paul Kelly and expanded on by Andrew Bolt. The real Julia is a far left socialist filled with anger at the ways in which she has been treated by who knows who. She has, moreover, discovered there are no votes in good policy aimed at making Australia a better place. She now builds a constituency around a shared sense of resentment supplemented by taxpayer funded handouts of every description. From Bolt:

Abbott is now struggling to respond to Gillard’s screams of ‘sexism’ ‘smear’, ‘slime’ and ‘negative’ – with the disengaged, especially women, drawn in by the yelling and, with no context to guide them, taking Gillard’s description of events at face value. Yes, Abbott must have been attacking her just for being a woman. Yes, he must not have evidence for his ‘smears’. When did we last have Prime Ministers who’d say with such certainty what was not true?

Gillard has also taken the Obama playbook to pitch to identity groups and the great masses of welfarists. The handouts – largely funded by borrowings and taxes now found to raise no revenue – have been extraordinary, from cash splashes to extra payments just for having children at school.

It’s brought her back from the dead. A Prime Minister who does not deserve to win and should be excoriated for her deceits, policy disasters and divisiveness is now back in the contest. [my bolding]

There is plenty of identity politics out there and the national interest be damned. It is the beginning of the end in the new world being created before our eyes, both here and in the US.