Roll out the (Pork) Barrel

And now the real story that should have appeared in The Australian:

Julia Gillard says she’s "never felt more ready" to blow an enormous amount of borrowed money to fund her re-election campaign in 2013.

Gillard says after a difficult year she "felt strengthened’" by her experience as Prime Minister and says the “biggest, hardest things” such as covering up the AWU scandal and pretending that she’s never heard the names "Peter Slipper" and "Craig Thomson" are behind her.

The Prime Minister named education and family as the areas in which she is going to make the most humungous election promises, based on throwing round as much cash as visibly as possible, no matter how much of it goes down the drain in the process.

Re-election was a “foundation stone”, while other priorities were continuing to throw money into the black hole known as the National Broadband Network, planning for her eventual retirement, and modernising infrastructure, this time without the involvement of anyone called Bill the Greek.

Ms Gillard said she had spent her Christmas and New Year reflecting on how she has led the most ineffective and wasteful government since the Whitlam era.

The Prime Minister said she was inspired to fight on by her late father, who had taught her the importance of equal opportunity.

“He taught me that it is important to have people you look up to but you must never look down on anyone,” Ms Gillard said.

This attitude will inform a newfound respect for Tony Abbott, which will be seen in her increasingly courteous and pleasant behaviour towards him in Parliament in 2013.

She will also be issuing an instruction to the Canberra Press Gallery to cease and apologise for their profoundly and consistently misogynist insults directed at Julie Bishop over the last decade.

Philippa Martyr blogs at Transverse City. Sometimes.