Gillard asks Labor for two more years of patience

Does Julia Gillard really have to play the shrew?

"Tony Abbott has said of himself that he is John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop's political love child," she said.

"Heaven knows that's bad enough but the truth is he is acting more like the love child of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump."

Most un-Prime Ministerial, Indeed, her whole speech at the Victorian Labor state conference seemed a bit desperate, pleading for patience in the hope that in two years time the Liberals will have run out of puff:

"There is a reason they are begging for an election in 2011," Ms Gillard told the Victorian Labor Party conference today.

"And it is not because they think they can win in 2013. It is because they know that in 2012 this mindlessly negative campaign will be exposed before every Australian."

Of course, by then the electorate may have really, really decided that it's Labor that stands exposed instead.