No paid maternity leave from coalition launch

It looks like John Howard has not, as anticipated, promised a paid maternity leave scheme for Australians.

So what were the noises coming from 'senior Liberal women' in the party that suggested he would do so? A feint? A ruse designed to prod Labor into reflexively adopting another 'me-too' position? Whatever the case, it seems Labor has failed to take the bait.

On the positive side, however, this does leave Labor free to make such an announcement without fear of the shrill accusations of "me-too-ism" from the coalition, fanned by the media. I certainly won't be holding my breath for it, mind- Labor have already committed their 'buying off people with kids' budget to a 50% childcare rebate, which is no doubt going to drive up the price of childcare in the same way that Howard's 30% childcare rebate did. A better way to spend that money would have been to cooperate with employers to set up in-house childcare centres. Or... a paid maternity leave initiative (god knows it's needed). Or both.

Maybe John Howard has given up on buying the female vote.

Just some anecdotal evidence on the state of mind of voters in our area-

Interestingly, all the times we've worn our Kevin07 t-shirts out, we have received more overt positive responses from females than males. Numerous young women have asked us where to buy them. The last time we wore them out was on Saturday, and we got smiles from middle aged women (none of the bitchy designer-clad trophy-housewife types, funnily enough), another shop assistant asking us where we bought them and she and her co-worker saying they planned to buy some, we got a couple of beeps, one 20-something male bogan yelling "go Johnny" from his car window, lots of horrified looks from people driving Audis and Mercs (sort of a 'the neighbourhood has really deteriorated' expression adorning their faces), and a young women stopping us while we were walking home to tell us that she really loved our shirts.

This, plus the footage of Kevin Rudd being mobbed by teenage girls at a shopping centre a couple of days ago (below) tells me that John Howard probably shouldn't even bother- Kevin's clearly got the chick vote all wrapped up.