The press gallery herd has stampeded
Julia Gillard is no longer an untouchable. On Saturday the lads and lasses of the press gallery declared an end to her protected status. It was if there had been a meeting of the columnist’s collective to reach an agreed position. Julia Gillard — from Teflon coating to feet of clay? wrote Laurie Oakes in the Brisbane Courier Mail and the other News Limited tabloids. This long time herd leader found that suddenly the Deputy Prime Minister’s competence is being questioned. Two other veterans in Saturday columns were on the same track if not as pointed in their criticism. Stimulus an item of faith Paul Kelly called it in The Australian, writing that the Rudd government’s $42 billion fiscal stimulus has now been exposed for its inefficiencies, cost overruns and lack of “value-for-money” — largely failings of the Gillard education package. The headline Come election day, Rudd and co may get a lesson in the folly of self-aggrandisement above Tony Wright’s commentary in the Melbo