Gillard has inspired my daughter

Something strange is happening. My daughter is interested in politics.

This comes as a huge shock to me. Never before have I seen her so enthralled by the goings on in Canberra. It started with the great Alan Jones affair and his insane spiteful comment that Gillards father had "died of shame" of Gillard. I think she was deeply shocked that someone could say such an incredibly hateful and insensitive thing, particularly I guess as she knows what it's like to lose a parent and the gut-wrenching grief involved in that. Gillard had only just returned from a week on leave for the funeral and to grieve.

Then her friend Nic that she knew from high school started that online petition of his to impail the evil Jones on the altar of a social media backlash. She was amazed when the petition went entirely bananas (it's at 115,000 signatures now) and her friend Nic was suddenly thrust onto TV in the national media. So she signed the petition way back when it only had a mere 20,000 or so signatures and kept looking at it and following what was happening with Jones.

And then last week came Gillard's speech impailing in real life in the House of Representatives in Canberra. This was after Abbott involved the Jones' "shame" word, saying the gov should have "died of shame". Even some of Abbott's own party members winched when he came out with it. My daughter heard it on the news and was appalled. We had a text exchange whereby I filled her in on the background; that Jones and Abbott were mates, that Abbott's speech was written by Abbott before he went into parliament, and that he was a head-kicker and said it purposefully after seeing Gillard's weakness. She couldn't believe he said that. I said the Gillard speech was available online in it's entirety. She said Abbott deserved to get it from Gillard after what he said.

Later that evening when she got home from work I was watching YouTube on the big telly in the lounge room, and she asked to see her speech. I was dumbfounded, so searched it again and put it on. She sat there for the entire 15 minutes enthralled by what she was seeing. This is someone who at 21 had not the slightest political interests. 

She saved the link to her PC and, and young people do, looked off and on to see how many views it was getting. The video went viral around the world. A day or so later I came home from shopping to hear her, her boyfriend, and another friend, in her bedroom all watching Gillard's speech on her PC. I've never seen anything like that before from any of them. 

She came to me a couple of days ago saying the video had got about 500,000 hits overnight (we're in a fucked up time zone here) from overseas I guess. She was utterly amazed. I dunno about YouTube too much, I guess that must be a lot? And the next day it was over a million total, today it's 1.3 million. This is in her world. It's astonishing that with one speech Gillard has so connected to someone without a political bone in their body.

To finish, Charles Waterstreet nails it in the main stream media:

When Abbott said this Parliament was covered in shame, he had both feet in his mouth and led with his glass jaw because people who throw punches or stones should not live in glass parliament houses. And the word was snatched from his mouth by Julia Gillard and shoved down his throat on Tuesday, in the most riveting, exhilarating, exhorting speech delivered in the house since Paul Keating hammered Hewson and Howard into submission on a daily basis. Gillard's speech channelled Margaret Thatcher, Germaine Greer and Martin Luther King jnr with the punch of Muhammad Ali.

Gillard rose from the ashes of the Slipper affair with her head glowing red, full of fire and ire, her big guns blazing and every bullet went into the head and heart of Abbott. On hearing the Opposition Leader say, ''Standing in this Parliament to defend this Speaker will be another day of shame … another day of shame for a government which should already have died of shame'', Gillard sensed blood. Maybe the blood on the knuckle of Abbott's left and right fists after they pounded the wall around the head of a frightened Barbara Ramjan, who had just licked him in a fair fight for presidency of the Students Representative Council at Sydney University in 1977.

The Prime Minister delivered the fatal one-two punches to the hapless jaw of Abbott. ''The government is not dying of shame, my father did not die of shame. What the Leader of the Opposition should be ashamed of is his performance in this Parliament and the sexism he brings with it.'' Read more

Here's the speech again if you've not seen it: