Howard's legacy, Julia's new spin

The sand in her timer is rapidly running out. The polls are no indicator of what is being said on the street. She and Swan are seen as part of the old regime and vilifying refugees will not overcome that legacy.

She will lose more support than she gains. She will never please the ill informed, narrow and ugly Right that she proposes to chase, but she will alienate the decent centre of her own party. She will deliver votes in spades to the Greens, because this is not just about the proper treatment of refugees, it is about what sort of Australia we want to live in.

Wooden, self-focused and unimaginative, Gillard has been seduced by Howard’s modus operandi; the world wonders at the selfishness, insularity, insecurity and gutlessness exhibited and projected on our behalf by a political leadership concerned only with whatever it takes to get re-elected.

Guillard’s “reforms” will push public debate and Opposition policy further to the Right.