Kevin Rudd must be gnashing his teeth after seeing how nice President Obama is being to our Prime Minister. It's being said that Obama is going out of his way to spend more time with her. She rode with the President in his limousine to a school in Virginia and a State Department official said it was very usual for the president to go "off campus" with a visiting leader.
Had Kevin Rudd still been prime minister for this visit which coincides with the 60th Anniversary of the ANZUS treaty, the scheduled meeting of the US House of Representaties Speaker John Boehner would have been rather embarrassing. In November 2009 when Republican Boehner was the House minority leader, he received a mouthful of contempt from Rudd who accused him and all those who denied the science of climate change as "holding the world to ransom" and "destroying momentum, playing with our children's future" and being "prepared to destroy our children's future".
As scheduled, Julia Gillard will meet Moehner tomorrow morning and I wonder what he'll say when she tells him she's just put a price on carbon. Meeting Boehner is part of the formality that occurs before Gillard addresses a joint sitting of Congress - a Republican-controlled Congress. A senior official said this would not happen if there was a deep objection to the Prime Minister.
Back at home Julia Gillard's popularity has hit an all-time low. Australians are battling the rising cost of living and putting a price on carbon, without a mandate from the people, seems to be the last straw. She clearly said before the election that it would never happen but now she says it will. Unrepentent Ms Gillard said last night ''I will continue to press to price carbon and we will get that done from July 1, 2102.'' Good luck with that Julia, it seems that only a small minority agree with you.
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