It was Andrew Bolt who noticed that this was the first time Gillard had appeared in public with glasses. There must be a vote or two in it since that can be the only reason they have both taken on this look since here is Hillary Clinton doing the same. You may be sure that this has been focus grouped to death.
Clinton needs to wear the glasses as a result of damage to her brain from her fall- the lens on her left eye contain a prism frame attachment to correct double vision she has from the head injury.
Gillard on the other hand is no doubt channeling the Clinton look.
victoria3220
30 Jan 13 at 6:01 pm
Did they bulk buy?
Gab
30 Jan 13 at 6:01 pm
What the heck is gillard measuring with her hands?
Gab
30 Jan 13 at 6:02 pm
Perhaps it is a disguise now the Victorian coppers are asking a few questions?
H B Bear
30 Jan 13 at 6:06 pm
Dog, Tony Windsor, announces: will contest the September 14 election.
C.L.
30 Jan 13 at 6:07 pm
People of her age only start needing to wear glasses for reading. Yet she was making an announcement. Would be great if someone pinched a pair and found them to be non-prescription.
Sleetmute
30 Jan 13 at 6:08 pm
Oakeshott hails PM’s ‘shrewd move’.
C.L.
30 Jan 13 at 6:08 pm
hahahahahha
That’s very funny, Bear.
At least the specs are the typical style the rest of the Emily’s list brigade and labor females seem to wear – low slung rectangular shape. It’s almost like a uniform to those idiots.
JC
30 Jan 13 at 6:08 pm
oops aren’t
JC
30 Jan 13 at 6:09 pm
The last time I noticed this was when Mark Latham was Opposition Leader in 2004, and he seemed to start wearing glasses for the first time. There was no doubt in my mind at the time that this was part of a deliberate image makeover to help soften his facial features and make him seem less scary. Without glasses, he looked like something of a larrikin-cum-thug from the rougher part of town. With glasses, he suddenly looked more like a middle class accountant.
Didn’t John Howard cop shit for trimming his eyebrows? Yet, of course, no politician on the left will ever cop ridicule from the media for an image makeover.
Monkey's Uncle
30 Jan 13 at 6:10 pm
Wow! All of a sudden, Jools looks….I dunno…like, reallly intellectual or something…..like really smart……like she could really run a country well!
Plus, she has nailed that “librarian that would go off like a belt-fed mortar on a defensive fire pattern” look.
I reckon I could vote for her now.
In fact, I will.
That is, if I can just ignore her turning this country into a laughing stock of misgovernance, incompetence, malfeasance, fatuously slavish PC orthodoxy and cynically opportunistic malignity.
Oh, and insisting on talking to us as if we were a particularly thick year seven class, in a voice that could grate cheese, in the apparent belief that sprinkling enough of Labor’s beloved abstract nouns into the verbal blancmange she is belching passes for something more than the simperings of the Peter Principle made flesh.
James in Melbourne
30 Jan 13 at 6:11 pm
Or just plain copied.
Yobbo
30 Jan 13 at 6:15 pm
Typical Gillard going off half arsed. She forgot the rest of the ensemble .
Splatacrobat
30 Jan 13 at 6:17 pm
FMD if I never hear another word uttered by Oakeshott and Windsor after they concede both their seats the last three years will almost have been worth it.
H B Bear
30 Jan 13 at 6:17 pm
There are six words I want to hear Oakeshott say post-election:
“Would you like fries with that?”
squawkbox
30 Jan 13 at 6:21 pm
The size of the boyfriend’s proctologist’s hands?
Septimus
30 Jan 13 at 6:22 pm
Clinton’s eyes were shot out by a sniper in Bosnia.
Infidel Tiger
30 Jan 13 at 6:23 pm
For mine, the specs are to cover up the bags under her lying eyes.
Septimus
30 Jan 13 at 6:24 pm
Perhaps gillard is getting sponsorship money from OPSM.
Gab
30 Jan 13 at 6:24 pm
She’s after the Nana Mouskouri vote.
McTernan must be a big fan.
Forester
30 Jan 13 at 6:25 pm
You’re more likely to hear:
“The purple berries taste like burning.”
Infidel Tiger
30 Jan 13 at 6:25 pm
Oh Splatacrobat, her snout would never fit inside that fake nose
Tracey
30 Jan 13 at 6:26 pm
When you’re ugly on the inside, nothing you put on the outside matters a damn!
Megan
30 Jan 13 at 6:26 pm
I personally think she looks better with the glasses.
Andrew
30 Jan 13 at 6:30 pm
It’s to make her look more like Bob Carr.
(I’m afraid this photo of Carr simply reminds me of that episode of Black Books where Bernard announces that a kid has the ‘cold, dead eyes of a killer’.)
Philippa Martyr
30 Jan 13 at 6:33 pm
Can you hear the lambs Clarice ?
Pickles
30 Jan 13 at 6:35 pm
The breadth of her moral and ethical compasses, combined. And for the record, I think the glasses make her look like a slightly younger Michelle Grattan. Only slightly younger…
Supplice
30 Jan 13 at 6:37 pm
I would love to be at a few of those shopping centre “meet and greets” once Oakeshott and Windsor start campaigning. Hopefully an intrusive media outlet will cover the final conclusion to the betrayal of their electorates.
H B Bear
30 Jan 13 at 6:40 pm
Expanding on Victoria’s comment, Clinton has a Fresnel prism on her left lens, which is a stick on plastic sheet prism. She must have a seriously turned eye to require that, which occurs when an extra-ocular muscle is not functioning as a result of a cranial nerve palsy. Commonly that is a result of a hemorrhage or blot clot in the brain disrupting the cranial nerve functioning. It usually resolves after a few months, unless it is caused by some other pathology such as MS, tumor, etc. Too much info? Sorry, I am an eye guy. It may be that there are health implications for someone wanting to run for President when they are 4 years older, or not. And I thought Julia looked the best she has for a while, but as a small business owner, the sooner we get to dump her the better.
Greg
30 Jan 13 at 6:40 pm
Firstly, the glasses appeared to make her squint, secondly there appeared to be no magnification of her eyes caused by the lens. They are not bifocals.
Dan
30 Jan 13 at 6:45 pm
Study both pictures at the top. Hildogs left eye is manipulated by the lens. Not so on JG.
Dan
30 Jan 13 at 6:47 pm
She’s wearing them because every time she passes Krudd, he sticks out two fingers and pokes her in the eyes. She’s too slow at raising the knife hand to ward off his eye poking attacks.
boy on a bike
30 Jan 13 at 6:48 pm
Unfortunately Clinton has looked so unprofessional this last year or so, with the longer hair that seemed daggy and too fine to cope with the stresses of her travels, etc. From looking a competent, confident woman, she seemed to come across as trying to return to her teenage years. Doesn’t go well on any woman over 35, and those older seeking to be fashionable for the sake of fashionable, don’t. You lose all your credibility with 50% of the population. And you are too old to pull it all back into a ponytail when in a hot climate like the Middle East, or Mynmar. Image is everything, with perception right behind it. So if Clinton has ambitions on the White House, she needs to change her image and perception now. As for Gillard, the glasses look like they are fake. And why is she wearing them all day, should only need them for the fine print at her age, so she looks wrong in them. It is not a good look.
titch
30 Jan 13 at 6:54 pm
Thick goggles never helped Michelle Grattan to see that there are more political parties in Australia than her beloved A.L.P.
Thick goggles never helped Mr Magoo in the cartoons I recall from many years ago. Australia currently has a cartoon “government” which would be laughable if they weren’t so vastly incompetent.
If she needs glasses as thick as that, then it is no surprise that her taxpayer-funded private car has racked up 8 speeding infringements in just 3 months. She probably can’t see either the speedo or the speed limit signs in the streets she is driving in.
I do hope that the Victorian Police investigating the A.W.U W.R.A. matter and associated allegations of crookedness and corruption are not as easily ‘warned off’ or bribed, blackmailed or threatened as the police were who booked the P.M.’s car 8 times but were too scared to impound it under the “hoon driving” laws.
With goggles like those, it is questionable whether she should be allowed to drive at all.
Up The Workers!
30 Jan 13 at 6:57 pm
Tithe slapper looks like Michelle Gratan with the stunt specs
Tiny Dancer
30 Jan 13 at 7:01 pm
Clinton used to wear glasses when she was younger.
I’d say she has since used contacts or had corrective surgery but now has the mentioned double vision to contend with. Personally I think the glasses both soften Gillard’s sharp features and also make her look more authoritative. Wouldn’t be surprised if they are non-prescription, attempting to correct the public’s vision, not hers! They must think the public are fools.
Anthony
30 Jan 13 at 7:08 pm
The glasses are to blunt the childless meme by framing her image as more business like. Next up – big words, marriage & volunteering for something, anything
Rousie
30 Jan 13 at 7:10 pm
Thinks the polls show Labor have a chance of winning? Should have gone to Specsavers!
Harold
30 Jan 13 at 7:25 pm
This is the real Julia, ugly as a hatful of ****holes. I tried to watch the 3 minute clip of the announcement, but had to abort at 15 seconds. Focus hocus.
Jannie
30 Jan 13 at 7:30 pm
Gab – OPSM donates to the CFMEU, so by default you are correct.
Interestingly so does Coke, so gillzilla should be fronting with a diet cola anytime soon.
Carpe Jugulum
30 Jan 13 at 7:41 pm
Why would any business donate to any union, let alone the CFMEU?
Gab
30 Jan 13 at 7:43 pm
Gab – they have a favourable “arrangement”, with OPSM.
An organiser or shop stupid will refer them to the provider for a ‘great deal’ and the union takes a percentage for referral.
With CCA, every time they have a ‘Coke’ machine onsite a percentage goes to the CFMEU because no other provider is allowed onsite.
Carpe Jugulum
30 Jan 13 at 7:48 pm
Ms Clinton looks very nice, as always, the glasses suit.
She’s come out on top of that serious medical condition well, bit of a trooper.
candy
30 Jan 13 at 7:54 pm
Oops, nearly had to clean the keyboard. Please Candy, enough with the black humour … I’m trying to eat dinner.
Septimus
30 Jan 13 at 8:00 pm
Oh for cripes sake!
Mick Gold Coast QLD
30 Jan 13 at 8:05 pm
With glasses she looks even more like a cunning, scheming, tight lipped, hard nose, lying cow!
Chez
30 Jan 13 at 8:14 pm
She does look nice for a lady of her age, and after that blow to her head she’s done well.
candy
30 Jan 13 at 8:14 pm
And Hillary Clinton looks OK as well!
scratchpole
30 Jan 13 at 8:31 pm
Bill Clinton has had a few blows to the head. Is that why he wears glasses too?
Pete of Perth
30 Jan 13 at 8:46 pm
Well, that’s one way to put it.
Carpe Jugulum
30 Jan 13 at 8:49 pm
Probably to both heads
Tiny Dancer
30 Jan 13 at 9:06 pm
Candy
You are just too mice and actually Clinton’s wife has held out much better than he has, in politics hasnt she? Also she does the best she can with her appearance for a woman of her age and manages to look quite nice most times, so I agree Candy.
Aliice
30 Jan 13 at 9:12 pm
Maybe Tim poked her in the eye with his finger…..
john
30 Jan 13 at 9:24 pm
No, no, no, no! You all have it wrong! The most likely reason why she’s wearing glasses today is that Emmo swallowed her last pair of contacts again…
Rohan
30 Jan 13 at 9:31 pm
This is like how Barack Obama wanted to look really young for the first election the really old for the second election, going from no grey hair to almost completely grey.
Also I think a lot of people here are in for a real shock, just like only 3 of us put of 100 predicted the Obama win, too many people here are one-eyed. Gillard has made massive gains. She has successfully dirtied Abbott. Her campaign will be one of flat out lieing. Claiming how everything they have done has worked perfectly and how abbot was completely wrong about it. They will claim to have saved us from the gfc, and the will announced another stimulus and probably even another $1000 at the next budget.
Mundi
30 Jan 13 at 9:36 pm
or maybe to distract from some recent plastic surgery after the botox stopped working
shane
30 Jan 13 at 9:49 pm
As I said on the other thread, Hillary looks better than Jules in da glasses. Or is that through a glass, darkly? My glass is a lovely ruby red in the light.
Julia’s glasses complement her nose by looking as though they can both be removed together, like a falsie paired set from twenties vaudeville.
She thinks she has just pulled Mr. Rabbit out of a hat with her great new announcement but when she looks and sounds like a demented wanna-be librarian struggling to maintain composure on an experiment with crack-assisted LSD she somehow lacks credibility. Mr. Magoo had more.
Shuffle off now Jules and bring out da can can girls. Da Hairy Ape is in the mood for da corsets and frilly skirts wit no knickers underneath.
Next weekend baby, I tell him. I got the email today. Subject: your black lace corset is now ready. With the attachments, Yahoo put the whole thing into moderation.
It is Elizabethan style, natch. If that other Lizzie is still around on the Cat as per last night, she should know that I am now officially Elizabeth the First.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
30 Jan 13 at 10:20 pm
Reminds me of when the Greens MPs all got contact lenses instead of glasses over a very short period of time. And I rather doubt that Hockey is on a weight loss program at the moment purely for health reasons.
Chris
30 Jan 13 at 10:43 pm
Believe it or not Mundi I think we are fairly unshockable around here, especially after the Obama win, which quite a few here, including me, thought would be a close-run thing btw.
Regulars here live daily with exposures of the duplicity and mendacity of this current kleptocracy and expect the dirty tricks book to be well in evidence prior to the election as it is now. You are right to caution though; hubris hurts.
A lot of undecideds in voterville admire and like the ALP big numbers being put against ‘worthy’ causes like schools and hospitals and think no further about it. The Coalition would be wise to concentrate on the bills that must be paid in the end, the big ones of those bills being job losses and tax (super?) grabs, ie. bills that are felt right at home, in misery and in the hip pocket.
Keep your savings and job, or take your handout and lose both, should be the mantra and main thrust of the Coalition’s message.
Oh, and mention da kids’ futures, endlessly.
On second thoughts though, maybe the Coalition should just join the give-away crowd, promise the world just like the ALP and then do what they can to remove the Labor stain and pay for the promises through efficiency savings when they shove this lot out.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
30 Jan 13 at 10:44 pm
Not Clinton, she copied Olive from ‘On the Busses’ fame.
Davo
30 Jan 13 at 11:59 pm
Hilary has a swollen face, a disproportionately large head, the appearance of an ageing frump, a thumping great backside and a wholly dishonest character. She has a covered up AWU-type financial scam in her past.
The Slapper has a Pinocchio nose (quite appropriate) narrow distrustful eyes, a mean face, a thumping great backside and a wholly dishonest character. She has a covered up Whitewater-type financial scam in her past.
A new set of glasses featuring less than 10% of their vast, pear shaped, unattractive mass cannot disguise that. They remain quite ugly outside and in.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
31 Jan 13 at 1:58 am
I’ve heard that they are the latest Google glasses, but they are having problems with the altona drone translation package..
Steve of Glasshouse
31 Jan 13 at 7:19 am
Must have been a focus group full of Fitzroy hipsters if they thought the glasses look was a winner.
rebel with cause
31 Jan 13 at 9:05 am
You’re too paranoid Samuel J. The new glasses look really really doesn’t matter; if anything in Gillard’s announcement yesterday was ‘focus grouped to death’ it would have been the substance of her speech.
The left I recall were similarly paranoid about John Howard, especially to the end of his tenure – especially in his last two terms the label ‘tricky’ stuck. I suppose it could be argued that it helped make the left/Labor attacks on the coalition focused. I’d say it made the left obsessive about little pointless things, distracted them from the things they should have been focusing on, and detracted from their winning chances.
What’s needed now is less paranoia about little things like glasses, more analysis of policy I reckon.
TimT
31 Jan 13 at 10:17 am
If only we could say the same about the 4 people she let die in Benghazi.
Infidel Tiger
31 Jan 13 at 10:20 am
With that trowled-on make up and the glasses she looks more like a down market version of Edna Everage than Clinton or Mouskouri.
Lew
31 Jan 13 at 10:30 am
Obama was always the massive favourite. And by favourite I mean there are bookmakers who lay odds on this sort of thing and never gave Romney a chance.
For the upcoming Australian election, Sportsbet has Gillard as a 4-1 outsider. That’s almost unheard of in a 2-horse race.
These people make predictions for a living. People here who thought Romney would win were engaging in wishful thinking. If you want an honest prediction, get it from someone who is willing to put their money where their mouth is.
Yobbo
31 Jan 13 at 10:31 am
My post spammified because it linked to sportsbet. Is it not possible to whitelist people?
Yobbo
31 Jan 13 at 10:33 am
The only similarity between The Slapper and Clinton is that they both have legs that look like those usually seen on full size billiard tables.
Lew
31 Jan 13 at 10:33 am
Anyway, cliff notes, in response to mundi:
Obama was always the bookies favourite to win the last election. The people hoping for a Romney win were doing just that, hoping.
In Contrast, The Labor party is a 4-1 outsider to win the next election in Australia.
Bookies make predictions for a living.
Yobbo
31 Jan 13 at 10:35 am
The Gillard ‘government’ has certainly lived up to Menken’s take on democracy being
Tintarella di Luna
31 Jan 13 at 10:43 am
Yeah maybe but it’s a bit hard to reconcile because I think the Duchess of Dull, Roxon is channelling Olive -
Tintarella di Luna
31 Jan 13 at 10:48 am
Haha Tint, You have nailed it.
Splatacrobat
31 Jan 13 at 10:57 am
That’s why,when she knifed Rudd I dubbed her (among other things unrepeatable in the polite company of the Cat) The Basilisk
Tintarella di Luna
31 Jan 13 at 10:59 am
Oooh!
The Real Julia Gillard ™, now with Action Glasses!
And without Evil twin Gillard’s goatee
Derp
31 Jan 13 at 11:02 am
Gillard without glasses: We can provide money for Gonki & NDIS out of budget savings the Treasurer has identified.
Gillard with glasses: Where the fuck did all these extra zero’s come from in the deficit figues Wayne?
Splatacrobat
31 Jan 13 at 11:04 am
Ms Gillard’s new look is pale makeup and pale lipstick, kind of an honest plain nice librarian’s look, with calm voice. Simple black and white clothes.
It must have take some time to come up with this idea and work out how to project it. quite an actress.
candy
31 Jan 13 at 11:06 am
Gillard looked like Groucho after a shave on the Today Show.
Infidel Tiger
31 Jan 13 at 11:08 am
What a spectacle!
When I first saw the new look I immediately thought Ms Gillard had spent the previous evening with her brillo-haired former pillow-partner, the infamous (more than famous)song-and-dance man, Dr Emerson who may have needed a little more hindsight.
Tintarella di Luna
31 Jan 13 at 11:12 am
She can’t do much with her hairstyle though. It’s currently hiding those voluminous earlobes. If she wanted to make a personal sacrifice to GM victims Plastic Surgeons could make 10 labias out of the excess.
Splatacrobat
31 Jan 13 at 11:13 am
‘What the heck is gillard measuring with her hands?’
The length of time she has left as leader of the ALP rabble.
Popular Front
31 Jan 13 at 11:28 am
‘People of her age only start needing to wear glasses for reading. Yet she was making an announcement. Would be great if someone pinched a pair and found them to be non-prescription.’
Compare the pics of Clinton and Gillard. Corrective lenses, seen from the other side, distort the curvature of the cheekbone as seen in the Clinton pic quite clearly. Gillard displays no such visual distortion, suggesting to me that her specs are either very very mild or just phonies. Given Gillard’s proven mendacity I’ll bet they are just a McTurdling-ordered accesory.
Popular Front
31 Jan 13 at 11:32 am
Further on the phony-baloney glasses point, slide on over to the Telegraph website. There are two pictures of the hideous Gillard, look at the smaller one of her in semi-profile – it illustrates my point perfectly.
Popular Front
31 Jan 13 at 11:57 am
TLS’ specs look ridiculous.
Specs which don’t stand like dog’s balls are what I prefer to wear and I’m just a few years older than Madam Pash.
Oh wait, I wonder if they are the free ones through the government?
kae
31 Jan 13 at 12:33 pm
Gillard looked like Groucho
Our Jools is more Marx than Groucho.
TimT
31 Jan 13 at 3:49 pm
Good ol’ four-eyes
Sisyphus
31 Jan 13 at 9:48 pm