One of the most common criticisms of politicians today that they lack authenticity. With the political arena now governed by the 7 second sound bite and the 140 character tweet – the complexity of an argument can be easily lost.
That didn’t happen this week because one press conference and one interview have got everyone talking.
Yesterday Prime Minister Julia Gillard took to the ‘Blue Room’ at Parliament House today to deliver a press conference of epic proportions. She spoke for about and hour and a quarter (to put that in perspective, the average politician’s press conference is around 20 minutes).
Prime Minister Gillard took questions from the press gallery on issues from asylum seekers, to sexism in the media, to her former boyfriend’s alleged misconduct 17 years ago. She spoke almost entirely without notes and was cool, calm and determined.
Take a look:
If you weren’t watching the ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday night then you need to re-cap. And fast. Because presenter Leigh Sales’ interview with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was something to behold.
It was an unusual interview to say the least. Sales, who is a phenomenally competent journalist was in spectacular form. She came out strongly from the start, armed with facts and figures and across the detail in a way that took the Opposition Leader completely by surprise. Which in itself was surprising.
Again, we got to see the Opposition Leader responding to questions in a longer form interview that we’re used to.
You can watch the interview on the ABC’s website here.
Editor’s note: Tony Abbott has since clarified in a press conference that he had read the BHP documents.
Were you watching 7.30 last night? What did you think of the interview? What did you think of the Prime Minister’s press conference today?
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I thought the prime minister did a great job at answering questions at the hope of getting issues out of the way and over and done with.
Actually it reminded me of a tv show. For anyone who's never watched the American tv show the West Wing, in the final season the show follows two the two campaigns of the democrats & republicans who are running for president and their day to day lives on the campaign trail. As the election becomes closer a disaster occurs at a nuclear power plant and it comes out that the up and running of the plant was supported by one of the opponents. As I'm sure most people can imagine how the media reacted to such information. However, in the episode the politician takes a three hour press conference and answers every question in the hope of putting the story to bed.
Maybe one of Julia's advisors paid attention to the West Wing! ;)
Always appreciate a person with high-level statecraft skills, but somehow I can't find too many people with these skills. Julia has cultivated them nicely. Abbot is blissfully unaware that they even exist or that he needs them. Hell where do we go from here? Party politics is not about us any more, it's about the parties themselves, and they couldn't give a damn about any of us - only about themselves.