Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. I think we would all agree it is very important that Australians are inspired to understand their democracy, inspired by the prospect of serving in public life, whether that be as a member of parliament or in one of our great Public Service agencies, whether that be in my department or in the Prime Minister’s department, the ministry of foreign affairs or perhaps even the Electoral Commission.

I think we would recognise that there was a sigh of relief from the Electoral Commission after certain events yesterday, because how much public education would it have taken for the 2010 election to be between Kevin and Julia, and Kevin and Julie? It would have been a close election, so close there would only have been a letter’s difference in it! One does wonder whether we would have ended up being a nation internationally ridiculed, as people from around the world concluded that every Australian man must be a serious, churchgoing type called Kevin and every Australian woman must be a former lawyer called Julie or Julia! The nation has certainly dodged a bullet as a result of yesterday’s events. I do note that we should be praising the member for Wentworth for introducing the name ‘Malcolm’ into the election, to stop this confusion!

I do also note, though, from a Mr Grech email that not everybody is a fan of the current leadership team. Mr Grech did say: ‘Agree that MT is doing a good job but he needs to deal with the JB issue.’ It seems to me grossly unfair; I won’t stand for it! I think the team of Malcolm and Julie is doing very well indeed. But that does not mean that we are holding anything against the member for Menzies, and I have actually bought him a small Christmas present as a token: these pens. I know that he is probably feeling a little bit poorly today, so it is something to remind him of those good old days in the past—

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