Radio Australia Today Editorial

Not Happy Julia
"...Gillards performance in this has been at best inept. Kevin Rudd would have at least called the people first to ensure he did not create an embarassment of himself diplomatically. Reading the transcript from Lateline it was clear that Gillard did not understand the difference in roles between the President and Prime Minister in East Timor. She tried to spin, but it did not hide her lack of knowledge in foreign affairs. She gets lost talking about unemployment, talk about amateur hour...."

Tango
"...I hear alarm bells going off for our well spoken. articulate, intelligent PM.......She lacks wisdom and cultural sensitivity.! The good word says ..If any man lack wisdom let him ask of God...."

Jaye
"...Golly gee, who would have thought that a member of the gang of four (now the gang of three), would put forth to the electorate a half baked, cock up of an idea?..."

the yank
"...Mr Gusmao has emerged from a meeting with East Timor's president Jose Ramos-Horta, in which the pair discussed Australia's proposal. He says Mr Ramos-Horta will take a lead role in negotiations with Australia." Lead story from ABC's on line. Why don't we wait and see what happens?..."

Jane
"...This is what happens when you dream up a plan to copy policy on an overnight whim...purely to stymie the flow of votes and checkmate the opposition. It's insincere....and ill thought out. Gillard can't even copy policy properly. Now on radio she's even backing away from the fact she nominated Timor!!! What a cock up. Get rid of these inexperienced incompetents...."

mary poppins
"...gee me thinks the libs starfers even come here how amazing..."

rebecca
"...There is no way an intelligent person like Ms Gillard would have announced a policy proposal without talking to the right people, she's been in the political arena for far too long...there's more to this story. When President Ramos-Horta visited in June, how do we know that an agreement was made that all correspondence between the two countries, should initially be with him. It was his obligation to inform his Prime Minister of the phone conversation with Ms Gillard. And Dionisio Babo Soares says that East Timor isn't ready for such a proposal, let's see how ready they are when the Australian government throws a few million dollars their way...."

Policy Charade!
"...Ms Gillard please go back to school and get some basic Politics 101 education! Know how to handle people from other lands and learn to differentiate a head of state from a prime minister You are such a laughing stock with your rushed solutions to the plight of boat people/ asylum seekers! now Krudd is out of the way - no thanks to both you and Bill (the ambitous one) Shorten for that uncalled for execution , so now you have no one to blame but your self! So Gillard see if next time you can execute a well thought out well considered policy , instead of rushing out quick- fixes that attempt to dogwhistle the public! Now the sophisticated voting public are not fools we do not like the East Timor solution as East Timor is just geting back on its feet! East Timorese people have enough of their own concerns without you making life even harder for them! So Gillard your position as an unelected PM armed with policy charades is already causing due concern! Perhaps Krudd now may have a skerrick of understanding from you that being PM is not as easy as it looks! Public want sound policies not BUNGLED ONES!..."

Charles
"...This is becoming farcical. I used to think Kevin Rudd was Australia's worst ever PM, but Julia is surging past him. They are making Australia a world laughing stock, and I am surprised Gillard is still walking around after all the shots she has taken at her foot...."

Marilyn Shepherd
"...Gillard has always been ignorant though. I have had dealings with her that are so harsh she makes Phil Ruddock look like a cuddly teddy bear. This is not a regional solution, it solves nothing but a short term fix...."

Not Happy Julia
"...Backflip warning... Now Gillard is backing away from East Timor...the wormwords have start... “I’m not going to leave undisturbed the impression that I made an announcement about a specific location,’’ Ms Gillard told 4BC...."

James A
"...It just shows poor planning. But what do you expect when the people running the show have no real world industry experience in running big projects? You get disasters like this as well as the Insulation Scheme (run by a former pop star) and the School Infrastructure program (run by a professional politican who hasn't worked in the real world for years)...."

Julia
"...Wait until the open cheque is produced plus any other sweeteners that Juia might come up with, and then we'll see what happens. Julia Gillard is tarred with the same brush as Kevin Rudd. But she in fact is worse than poor Kevin. You really would have to have a brain the size of a bird if you can't see through Julia's spin...."

CARMEN
"...All I have to say is that Madam Julia Gillard is nothing more than a novice in the field of being Australia's Prime Minister - to Julia, I say, you'd better make the best of your short stay as a Unions puppet - very soon, you will be the next person to be axed from the very top job in the country, which by-the-way, you obviously are too inapt to handle...."

savrocca
"...Julia looks on with disbelief at the questions she is being asked as if she is shocked that people realise she is a duplicitous con artist. She will never admit that anything she has done or proposed is in any way compromised. How dare those Timorese defy her..."

Jane E
"...While Gillard back flips, all Labor commentators seem to be pushing the big trivialising lie that Tony Abbott just wants to turn back the boats. I hope that everyone sees this for the desperation tactics it is. Last time I looked this was only a small part of Abbott's policy which returns to off-shore processing, temporary protection visas, increased refugee places for legal entry, the opportunity for sponsorship of refugees, and rejection of those that destroy passports (after flying to Indonesia) etc. This clearly shows Gillard's refugee efforst to be just smoke and mirrors. I won't be falling for Labor spin again in a hurry!..."

John O
"...Now she's outright lying. She specified East Timor now she's denying it. Man, I'm starting to think Rudd was the bright one......"

SUELLEN
"...BLOODY HOPELESS... SHE IS SO INTO PHOTO SHOOTS AND TRYING TO SOUND INTELLIGENT .. TALK ABOUT A SPINNING TOP..... AMATEUR HOUR FOR THE PAST 2 YEARS... CAN'T SEE ANYTHING REAL ABOUT HER EXCEPT SHE IS LOVING THE ROLE SHE IS PLAYING... LAWYER SPIN MAY WORK BEHIND CLOSED UNION DOORS BUT HOPEFULLY THE VOTERS HAVE THEIR EYES WIDE OPEN THIS TIME...."

Elaine
"...Julia , please don't insult a bird,they have much more brains than that idiot unelected PM we have, who is fast making Australia a laughing stock. Send her back to her own country & rule that one, as there is a vacant spot for her there ...."

Ravensclaw
"...Well it didn't take long for Gillard to make her first International Relations blunder (that she couldn't blame Rudd for). The world was watching, waiting, hoping. Now they are watching, waiting and nervous. Think about this. East Timor has a detention centre providing food, education, health care, and housing to asylum seekers, while outside poor East Timorese could be homeless and starving. Cheers..."

CARMEN
"...One person I would very much like to see off my T.V. screen is brainless Sara Hanson-Young. She's all emotion, no real reason or solution. Open the gates really wide and leave them open for whoever choses to come through without any papers, passports etc.. You are very welcome into our country, our over taxed taxpayers will pay for all of your needs etc.. Make yourselves at home - well, I'm well and truely sick and tired of the do-gooders who think our beautiful country is nothing more than a garbage bin. To all of them, I say "buzz off"...."

GlenWriter
"...Phil, You are a radio journalist and you warmed up the ear with "It only took a couple of days for . . ." Women get headaches, and the lead up is a lot less than a couple of days. julia Gillard has a headache and is seeking relief from Timor for asylum seekers. No asylum there it seems so shall we throw the children of God overboard or seek some other specific solution?..."

Laurie
"...When it come's to Julia Gilrudd, Miners Tax, Asylum Seekers, ETS or anything else for that matter, doesn't matter one iota. The only thing that matters is that Julia can not and should not be trusted. She has shown she lacks credibility and her character is definitly questionable. When people DON'T answer questions and/or use fancy words, they are not being direct and simply have something to hide. This sort of unacceptable behaviour only confirms my thoughts of her...."

Antonio
"...I am astounded that it took two days before journalists were clever enough to ask the Prime Minister the most important question; "Where would the regional centre be located?". Sher certainly didn't name East Timor specifically during her speech, mentioning that she had discussions with E. Timor, New Zealand and had hoped to speak to the Indonesian President. Two days after the announcement, the only person it seemed who was clever enough to challenge the PM on what the journalists - who failed miserably from the outcome to either listen to her speech carefully, or ask the important questions afterwards - was a radio jock in Brisbane...."

Roger Raven
"...While “no” would seem a sensible answer to Julia Gillard’s politically self-serving request for a prison in East Timor for asylum-seekers, there is another question: Is the East Timor government is doing all it can to provide at least a basic level of services to all East Timorese? Clearly not. Incredibly, the theoretical investment required to achieve a target of reducing poverty by one-third by 2015 (the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goal, adapted for East Timor) is just $35-55 million a year. Yet poor government decision-making and lax fiscal management (worsened rather than improved by highly paid expatriate advisers) are contributing to increasing wastage. Big increases in rice import subsidies caused a big fall in agricultural production. East Timor's security forces and civil service are politicised, and could again trigger instability. What of East Timor’s oil wealth? Oil extraction “ ... almost invariably damages global and local environments, disrupts local communities, and transfers wealth from the poor to the rich.“ So it is proving in East Timor, notwithstanding local posturing about the overbearing Australians. Government business enterprises and statutory authorities should be used as development stimulators. Until quite recently, Australia itself actually followed that practice, starting with the State railway networks prior to Federation. Some reports do suggest that until other sectors "take over", "the Government may have to take the lead even for economic services." Yet East Timor's government shows no such enthusiasm for nation-building; their patriotism appears reserved for self-serving attacks on foreign governments, and encouraging impunity, incompetence, and corruption. Developing genuinely sustainable development structures for the littoral states deserves far more attention – though any truly effective structure is more likely to look like something from Comecon than from the Harvard School of Economics...."

Jua
"...Australia can try offer million of dollars but Timor still say no! no means NO..."

Jua
"...We/Timor Leste say no because we dont want to put up with the social and psychological impacts having the asylum seeker in our land, while we have own internal problem that needs to be solve. Gillard seems to ack on really fast when caming to talk about asylum seeker, but slow when Timor ask for Aussie Gov to return what has been its own right such as the oil and gas!..."