Reply #1: There's a strange dichotomy with Julia Gillard.

[Matilda]

Her parliamentary performances are very assured - she's articulate, quite often amusing, and can recite reams of facts without ever referring to notes. But put her in front of a microphone in public, and she becomes robotic, monotonous, boring and speaks as though she has no conviction at all. She'd be better off not making speeches, but just talking off the top of her head, the way she does in parliament.

It's one very big thing that Kevin Rudd had going for him and still does - he's a very good communicator, for all his long phrases. He always comes over as a real person.

And the reality is that he's the one person who could save Labor, but there's no way they could put him back this side of an election; they'd have to admit they got it totally wrong last year, and they'll never do that.

Looks like we're doomed to have Prime Minister Abbott, God help us! The only consolation is that I'm sure he will stuff up, because he has no real policies, and neither do his cohorts Hockey and Robb. He'll be a one-term PM, but I hate to think of the damage he'll do to the country even in the short term.

But I do think Howard is right about the Greens - they've gone about as far as they can go.