The Federal Opposition’s Julie Bishop has given an extraordinary press conference in which she attempted to justify the coalition’s decision not to to oppose the government’s legislation abolishing WorkChoices.
- Listen to Julie Bishop’s press conference (25m)
As the Sydney Morning Herald’s Annabel Crabb put it on February 20:
The Opposition’s Julie Bishop was on something quite different yesterday. Some sort of calmative, perhaps.
Ms Bishop has been vocal for months on the need to fight to the death for Australian Workplace Agreements.
And yesterday, for 30 minutes in the Senate courtyard, before a vast throng of fascinated reporters, with a fixed smile on her face, she consumed what for the benefit of family readers we will call a partially treated sewage sandwich. She was cool, charming and professional. She at no point lost her cool. And for much of the time, she made no sense whatsoever.
This is unsurprising, given that Ms Bishop was trying to explain how agreeing to abolish the agreements was pretty much the same as insisting on keeping them, if you thought about it.
