The biggest political story of the year is how Julia Gillard has turned weakness into strength as she continues to impose her authority. Picture: Gary Ramage Source: The Australian
Julie Bishop, right, led Tony Abbott's attack in parliament's last sitting week of the year. Picture: Kym Smith Source: The Australian
The real Julia is unleashed in her self-righteous fury and calculated aggression. Her voice now bounces across the summer landscape invading homes, hotels and workplaces. Her arch opponent, Tony Abbott, is traduced as sexist, relentlessly negative and an agent of smear as the nation divides between those who applaud Julia and those appalled by her.
Gillard has summoned up all the hostility and prejudice directed towards her and thrown it back in the face of her accusers with added venom. At the dispatch box her vituperation assumes a shocking, sharper edge precisely because she is a woman, yet it disappears when she momentarily falters in the chamber consumed by grief and compelled to reference the death of her father whom she loved deeply.
While the media is obsessed about Abbott's less than complex character and personality it seems struck dumb by Gillard who, in her transformation as Prime Minister, is the much more challenging psychological and political study. Was it as recent as the 2010 campaign the public got confused between real and fake Julia?
Gillard has resolved the confusion by the projection of a deeply polarising though tenacious persona, using her sex to attack her opponent, having to endure the humiliation of her past choice of male partners put on public display and recruiting a series of causes from disability to school education to entrench a true believer-caring identity.
The biggest political story of 2012 is how Gillard turned weakness into strength. Facing a primary vote in the 28-30 per cent death zone, Gillard began to operate on the assumption she was strong, not weak. It was a psychological defiance of reality and became the year's great drama. The upshot is that she intimidated Kevin Rudd, abused Abbott as a misogynist, patronisingly told business it had nothing to complain about, loaded the budget with unfunded true-believer Labor policies and accused virtually anybody who raises the AWU slush fund affair of "sleaze and smear".
The trap in this psycho-political drama is overreach. Has Gillard gone
too far? Has she overreached on each front? Will her initial poll improvements disappear when reality strikes back? There is an irony in such questions because, of course, for the past six months Gillard has nailed Abbott for proven overreach in his exaggerations about the carbon tax, an overreach that damaged Abbott's credibility.
But this week, Gillard did go too far. She claimed as PM an authority she did not possess. It was a mistake neither Bob Hawke nor John Howard would have made. Sitting in cabinet on Monday night Gillard, after only two ministers backed her and upwards of 10 opposed her, said her view would prevail and Australia would vote against UN recognition of Palestine's non-member state observer status.
This transferred the issue to caucus. Gillard fought to muster the numbers but was undone by the NSW Right. She retreated only when confronted with defeat and certain damage to her leadership. It was a stark demonstration of her will to dominate and tenacious determination to impose her authority.
It is the same mindset she brings to the "war on character" against Abbott. It is the mindset that has seen Gillard erode Abbott's public standing, expose the limitations of his tactics, provoke fresh doubts about his durability and instil hope into Labor ranks.
Both leaders are pledged to win the 2013 election by making the other unelectable. The personal poison in the Gillard-Abbott confrontation will only intensify because, on both sides, it is embedded in the character issue.
While Abbott came slowly to embrace the AWU slush fund accusations against Gillard, he is now a believer. This week, he crossed the threshold. He will run the issue against Gillard until voting day and use it as a hook to prosecute Labor from office if he wins.
The two most unexpected political events of the year were Gillard's playing of the misogyny card and the Coalition's year-end resurrection of the AWU slush fund from Gillard's time as a solicitor. They are linked in an elemental fashion - the first as Gillard's character strike against her opponent and the second as Abbott's character strike against his opponent.
All week Abbott outsourced the attack to his female deputy, Julie Bishop. This was essential - because Abbott is a man, it is too politically dangerous for him to lead the attack on Gillard's past.
The week ended in a stalemate. The Coalition wounded Gillard but there is no sign it has evidence that will jeopardise her leadership. Gillard, however, cannot dispose of the issue because she cannot eliminate the doubts the attack raised of alleged professional misconduct as a solicitor.
The central charge by Abbott is that Gillard as a lawyer gave misleading information to the West Australian Corporate Affairs Commission in establishing the Australian Workers Union Workplace Reform Association acting on advice from her client and boyfriend, an AWU official, Bruce Wilson, who then used the entity to extort monies from companies.
Abbott told the parliament: "The Prime Minister's involvement in it was this: she gave the advice and she made the representations that enabled the association to be incorporated; that facilitated the fraud."
His second charge is that Gillard later stayed silent, which meant that funds that belonged legitimately to the AWU were siphoned off from the entity by Wilson and his bagman, Ralph Blewitt.
Abbott said Gillard's actions were improper and unethical. On Thursday morning, going further, he said Gillard had broken the law by giving misleading information. He accepted that Gillard did not know at the time about Wilson's fraudulent use of the fund.
But Abbott finished with an assault on Gillard's character: "So the question for members sitting behind the Prime Minister today is: is she a fit and proper person to hold the prime ministership of our country?"
In reply, Gillard went for Abbott's jugular. Abbott, she said, "was calling for my resignation on the basis that I had committed a crime". He was a "rash man" and "a man who clutches for negativity and sleaze whenever he can".
In parliament and at her press conferences, Gillard said her only role had been to advise on the incorporation of the fund. She had no role in its management nor did she operate its accounts. Explaining why she did not later alert authorities to the fraud, Gillard said she did not know about it.
Under WA law, the association could be incorporated only for limited purposes of a charitable nature.
Its declared purpose was to promote safer workplaces. However, at her August media conference, Gillard said she knew at the time of its creation the association's purpose was "to support the re-election of a team of union officials".
This, presumably, is why she later called it a "slush fund". What, therefore, does the re-election of union officials have to do with workplace safety?
The link, Gillard told that press conference, is the team of union officials would stand on "a platform for change" because "they were committed to reforming workplaces" to promote safety.
This is a tortured effort to reconcile the real purpose with the declared purpose. Gillard later resigned as a salaried partner of Slater & Gordon. The firm lost its substantial account with the AWU. The association was used for large-scale fraud and this was possible only because it was registered with the name "Australian Workers Union" in the title.
In acting on behalf of Wilson, Gillard did not create a file, apparently did not tell the firm and did not believe it was necessary to get further consent of the AWU to use its name as Wilson was an AWU official.
Section 8 (1) of the relevant WA law says "the commissioner shall not incorporate an association" if its name is "likely to mislead the public as to the object or purposes of the association".
This is why Abbott raised the breach of law. Gillard denies any such breach. Abbott's mistake this week was to make the claim without having a fistful of legal opinions to this effect. They should be not be hard to acquire.
Is Gillard being excessively penalised for actions she took 20 years ago? Probably.
But that comes with the prime ministership. Does she deserve to lose her job? No. Will she be damaged? Yes. Will the issue disappear? No. Does Abbott run a political risk persevering with this character issue? Almost certainly.
But Abbott this week also framed the issue as an example of Labor ties to trade union corruption and lack of proper accountability.
By calling for a judicial inquiry, Abbott signals he will seek an election mandate for follow-up action in office. That might be limited to this AWU case or, more appropriately, have wider scope.
It will be seen within Labor and the trade union movement as a declaration of political war. Abbott has taken a critical decision - he will go to the next election with an aggressive pledge not on industrial relations reform but on trade union accountability.
At the 2007 election, the unions did an immeasurable service to Labor with their anti-Work Choices campaign.
Abbott now gambles that, at next year's election, he can make trade union accountability an issue and, in the process, keep Gillard in the "AWU slush fund" frame.
The mutual character assassination is guaranteed to intensify.
Paul Kelly is Editor-at-Large on The Australian. He writes on Australian politics and history, as well as international affairs, and he is a regular commentator on the Sky News program, Australian Agenda.
Paul Kelly is Editor-at-Large on The Australian. He writes on Australian politics and history, as well as international affairs, and he is a regular commentator on the Sky News program, Australian Agenda.
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