'From the Gallery'

July 23rd, 2010

• Peter Costello has joined the Abbott campaign to defeat the Labor government, this week deriding Gillard’s “Moving Forward” slogan. At a Lib gig, he screwed up his face and attempted a Gillard impersonation with a nasal rendition of “Moving Forward”. He got a big laugh. We don’t think much of the slogan, but it was not as bad as Howard’s “incentivisation”, which is not even a word.

• Labor got little thanks, therefore, from Rudd appointing Costello to the board of the Future Fund, thus earning the former Treasurer $86,000 a year. Rudd took a lot of heat at the time for handing out good jobs to Libs, particularly from Paul Keating. The former Labor PM described Costello as a “policy bum”. One would have thought Costello would understand that he looked to be grasping to accept the job from Rudd, who he had frequently assailed as hopeless.

• We wonder if Brendan Nelson will fly back from Europe at taxpayers’ expense to join in Abbott’s campaign. Nelson, to the fury of Labor MPs, was appointed by Rudd as Australia’s ambassador to the European Union and the country’s special representative to NATO.

• If Gillard wins the election – causing Abbott to retire from Parliament – we very much doubt whether he, or any other Lib, will be getting prized jobs ahead of her Labor mates.