2012 will “trigger the start of a year-long debate on the Australian economy”, says Julia Gillard.

She says Labor is the party most interested in helping “working families”.

The Opposition will reply that, in fact, the Coalition likes working families best.

Both will promise to more services and handouts, while collecting less taxes than the others.

Ho hum.

* * *

Both parties assume that in a good society, mothers go out to work.

“Working families” means conscripted mothers.

Babies and toddlers spending most of their lives not knowing where their mother is.

Possibly not knowing who their mother is.

“Bringing the budget back into surplus” is less important than bringing mothers back to their offspring.

Most young mothers want to stay home with Junior. Multiple polls have proved it.

We need a party whose policy is to give men, especially fathers, preference in jobs — and that the wage of a man working full-time will always be sufficient to feed a family.

If the Catholic bishops consistently taught this — and had proper research done to demonstrate that it is not a pipe-dream . . . .

That would revolutionise the spiritual welfare our younger generation.

The question of “sexism” has been dragged into the public’s face yet again.

Greens Party leader, Senator Bob Brown, claims that Julia Gillard has been “getting a rough time . . . and quite a bit of the criticism is sexist . . . .”

Surely the word sexist should be abandoned.

It has no definable meaning.

Like a lot of other “isms” it is used as a term of abuse and not much more.

* * *

Senator Brown also said that there is “a big swing around from the average punter in favour of Julia Gillard.”

Is there?

If there is, J. Gillard doesn’t know about it.

In her desperation, she hosted an “informal” barbecue at the Lodge the other night and made a speech about loyalty and discipline — and how opposing her Prime-Ministership amounts to “helping the Liberals”.

* * *

Isn’t the sexism bit just another tactic to stall off the seemingly inevitable?

If JG can get her critics labelled with the unthinkably untrendy label of “sexist” — might that distract Labor MPs from their desire for a better leader?

Rightly or wrongly, average punters consider Julia Gillard a disloyal back-stabber — and a conscience-free liar.

Her atheism also makes her a liability.

Her gender is less of an item.