On Wednesday, Ms Gillard descanted upon Mr Howard's brave and forward-thinking policies on climate change. "I remind the House that in 2007 Prime Minister Howard actually went to the election promising 'the most comprehensive emissions trading system anywhere in the world'!" she trilled, to an admiring rumble of hear-hears from the Government benches.

...

Ms Gillard's own attitude to the carbon-tax protestors, meanwhile, is complicated. On one hand, she utters "not a word of criticism about them". On the other, she simply cannot believe that Mr Abbott would hang out with such an "extremist", "sexist" bunch of weirdos. One cannot imagine Mr Howard offering such an equation, either.

But Ms Gillard's MPs have caught their leader's enthusiasm.

Greg Combet praised Mr Howard for his courage in developing an emissions trading scheme, and spoke warmly of his gun control laws. David Bradbury, the member for Lindsay (an electorate with a long history of entrancement with Mr Howard) - welcomed his acceptance of climate change, while Queensland backbencher Graham Perrett applauded Mr Howard's mandatory installation of flagpoles in schools. Jill Hall was full of admiration for Mr Howard's foresight in establishing the aid programme for Indonesian schools.

Only one Labor MP - Queensland backbencher Shayne Neumann - was off-message this week in the new cascade of love for the former PM. "Under the Howard Government, profligate spending was rampant," said Mr Neumann, whose outdated views on the World's Greatest Ever Prime Minister will surely crimp his progress. "John Howard never found a middle class welfare rort he did not want to fund."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/25/3173957.htm

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Gus: aaaahhhh.... compare Tony's behaviour to the good ol' days of JWH simple hypocritical PMship... Brings tears to my eyes...