Liberal supporters mocked it. And there is the reason why I find the whole thing boring. Gillard's speech was not a scathing attack on Abbott to expose his deeply held sexism, and neither was it a blatant display of hypocrisy in defence of a real misogynist. What was it? An uninspiring partisan response to a successful partisan power-play. It was smart PR -- a very clever way to divert the public conversation away from the Slipper debacle. Abbott was trying to embarrass the government while also taking away the vote that they had from Slipper being speaker, Gillard was trying to defend her majority by recycling old allegations at Abbott. I have annexed a breakdown of the arguments that Gillard used at the end of this post, but more important than what was there is what was missing: there was absolutely nothing about Abbott's record in office or any policies that he has proposed which harm women, it was a purely personal attack on Abbott's character. There is no real policy issue at all and it contributes little to the Australian debate, it's just boring. That is why its effect will never be anything other than to provoke cheers from Labor supporters and jeers from Liberal supporters. It was not aimed at 'exposing Abbott', so much as spurring-on people who already don't like Abbott. The Liberals had a bit of a coup when Slipper's text messages were made public and Labor countered with a clever diversion to mitigate the damage.