Her recent actions are more presidential than Prime Ministerial. Perhaps she considers that, like the US President she can make executive decisions on certain matters.

When President Obama won the election for his second term he was able to get the conservative Republican dominated Congress to agree to raise taxes on very rich Americans to assist in lowering the massive deficit.

Julia Gillard obviously thought that this could be a good way to ease her budget woes as she now plans to look at ways to get more money from Australians on higher incomes.

By announcing the date for the Federal election nearly eight months ahead, the Prime Minister and Treasurer both claimed that it was their intention to force the Coalition to release their policies well before the election date so that they can be fully costed.

Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey both said that their policies will be released sometime after the budget is brought down in May.

I believe that the speech given by Tony Abbott at the National Press Club last Thursday was probably the best that he has ever given. Perhaps it was because he was speaking as an alternative prime minister and not as a leader of the opposition.

If he can manage to curb his impetuous behaviour up to the election and be more positive in his outlook, he would gain more support from those people, myself included, who up till now have not considered him to be able to lead the country into the future.

Allan Chapman, Windellama.