The Australian Prime Minister is knitting a kangaroo for the royal baby which is due next month. 
 
 Julia Gillard surprised readers of Australian Women's Weekly when she revealed her unusual idea for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's first-born, suggesting it was a "cute project to work on". 
 
 She explained: "In terms of knitting for Kate's baby - I knit for babies, in part, because they are smaller projects. 
 
 "I've got not that much time in my life. You can get them done and there's a sense of satisfaction in having completed it." 
 
 The PM's press office insisted it was not just a PR opportunity even though it was they who suggested it in the first place. 
 
 "I'm keen to discuss options for an interview/photoshoot with the PM, ideally for the July edition," said an email sent in April from director of communications John McTernan to the magazine. 
 
 "As I mentioned the PM is putting together a care package for Kate Middleton, who is due in mid-July, and I was thinking this would make a great story for the magazine. 
 
 "I'm picturing a story that includes the patterns for the items the PM will knit so your readers can knit their own royal blanket or something." 
 
 The controversial PM, who ousted her predecessor Kevin Rudd in 2010, agreed to the magazine photo shoot to coincide with her third anniversary in office. 
 
 She heads the centre-left Labor Party and is predicted to lose September's general election - polls indicate the party would do better under Mr Rudd's leadership. 
 
 However, Ms Gillard insists she is not going anywhere. 
 
 She has had a hard time of it recently, having had the sexuality of her partner questioned by an Australian radio host and been the butt of a menu "joke" from an opposition party fundraiser, with friends saying she is the victim of male chauvinism. ||||| The Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, has whipped up a storm 
 
 after appearing in the Australian Women's Weekly knitting a toy 
 
 kangaroo for the royal baby. 
 
 The photoshoot depicts the prime minister in an armchair, surrounded 
 
 by balls of wool, with her dog Reuben at her feet. 
 
 The pictures have sparked controversy in parts of the Australian 
 
 media, who have called it "contrived" and "remarkable". Commentators 
 
 have pointed out that Gillard has traditionally rejected feminine 
 
 presentations. 
 
 News Limited columnist Andrew Bolt said Gillard was "giving 
 
 encouragement to young female politicians by plying a hobby now 
 
 synonymous with mad old aunts." Nationals Senator Fiona Nash told 
 
 Fairfax it looked like "a bit of a stunt" that showed "a lack of 
 
 connection" with the Australian public. While senior Liberal 
 
 Christopher Pyne said to reporters in Canberra: "We know the prime 
 
 minister is good at spinning a yarn, now we have a picture to prove 
 
 it." 
 
 Gillard has previously been criticised for her perceived lack of 
 
 homemaking instincts. In 2005 much was made of a photograph in her 
 
 sparse-looking kitchen with an empty fruit bowl on the table. 
 
 Defenders have pointed out that the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, is 
 
 routinely photographed taking part in his hobbies such as cycling and 
 
 working with his local surf club. 
 
 In an accompanying interview feature published online Gillard spoke on 
 
 a range of issues, including her career legacy, family, September's 
 
 federal election and her republican views. 
 
 She said she would look back on her time as Australia's first female 
 
 prime minister with "a sense of pride and achievement," particularly 
 
 for her work in health and education. 
 
 During the knitting photoshoot, Gillard remarked "this feels slightly absurd". 
 
 She said she decided to knit the kangaroo for the baby of Prince 
 
 Williamand the Duchess of Cambridge as a gift, saying it would be "a 
 
 cute project to work on". She said she usually knitted for babies as 
 
 the smaller projects meant she had time to finish them in her busy 
 
 schedule. 
 
 "I guess my life is full of the engagements that politics brings and 
 
 some are them are quite combative engagements," she said. 
 
 "I don't shy away from that. If there is something I hope I have done 
 
 for the image of women in public life it is that we can go into an 
 
 adversarial environment like parliament and we can dominate it and 
 
 conquer it. 
 
 "But that's not all of me. [Knitting the kangaroo] is an opportunity 
 
 to show a side of me. I can't imagine [political commentator] Laurie 
 
 Oakes saying: 'Hmmm, knitting patterns. What are you working on at the 
 
 moment?'" 
 
 Gillard also spoke candidly about her family. 
 
 Of her father John, who died in September, Gillard said: "Dad was 
 
 incredibly proud of me becoming prime minister, and incredibly proud, 
 
 I think, that it was him that sparked the interest in values, 
 
 politics, current affairs, and particularly education." 
 
 Not long after her father's death, the radio broadcaster Alan Jones 
 
 told a lunch attended by Liberal Party members John Gillard must have 
 
 died "of shame". 
 
 In the intervew Gillard also responded to last year's jibe from 
 
 Germaine Greer referring to her "big arse" on ABC TV's Q&A program, 
 
 saying the statement "demeaned her more than it demeaned me". 
 
 "I do take a lot of pride in being someone who not only fought for 
 
 equal opportunities for women," Gillard said. "But for her, given 
 
 everything she stands for, everything she would have inspired, I just 
 
 thought it was stupid." 
 
 Knitting the kangaroo for the royal baby did not clash with her views 
 
 that Australia should become a republic, she said. 
 
 "I campaigned for a yes case. We will get there again," she said. 
 
 "There is a real sense of respect for the Queen, so I do think a 
 
 natural moment to look again will be when her reign comes to an end. 
 
 "Prince William and Kate, and their child will still be personalities 
 
 in Australia; people will still follow their lives with interest." 
 
 Like much in Australian politics, the origins of the idea for the 
 
 knitting photo shoot have been hotly disputed. 
 
 The Australian Women's Weekly article said that "having Ms Gillard 
 
 pose with needles was not The Weekly's idea. Her office came up with 
 
 it," quoting media director John McTernan [a former adviser to Tony Blair] 
 
 as saying "it was a no-brainer". 
 
 The prime minister's press office responded on their blog, saying that 
 
 they had suggested to the magazine that her gift for the royal baby 
 
 might be of interest, but that it was the magazine which requested 
 
 Gillard knit and bring Reuben along for the shoot. 
 
 More than 400 photos were taken and Women's Weekly had complete 
 
 creative control over the shoot, it continued. 
 
 In response to that blog post, Australian Women's Weekly acknowledged 
 
 the prime minister's office's denial of the suggestion but said, "in 
 
 an email to the Weekly a staffer clearly outlines the idea of a 
 
 knitting pattern". ||||| The photograph, posed for an interview spread in the country's biggest-selling magazine, Australian Women's Weekly, and reproduced in multiple newspapers, was deemed a public relations disaster. It was also ominously reminiscent of the Dickens character Madame Defarge and the "tricoteuses" who knitted by the guillotine during the French Revolution. 
 
 The notoriously abrasive Mr McTernan, who was hired by Ms Gillard in 2011, dreamed up the idea, which he called a "no-brainer" - presumably calculating it would appeal to female voters. But like the Prime Minister's recent speech warning that abortion rights would be scaled back and women's voices silenced if the conservative opposition won power this September, it has been condemned as a cynical stunt. 
 
 In the picture, Ms Gillard - whose poll ratings, along with those of her Labor Party, are rock bottom - is knitting a kangaroo for the royal baby: an odd pose, perhaps, for a staunch republican and female leader who electrified women worldwide last year with a parliamentary speech accusing the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, of misogyny and sexism. 
 
 Mr McTernan, who helped to re-elect Mr Blair in 2005, has become a much talked about figure in Australian political circles, with some comparing his bully-boy tactics and robust language to those of Malcolm Tucker, the spin-doctor in the BBC satire The Thick of It. 
 
 After a Sydney radio host, Ross Greenwood, claimed last year that government plans to raise tax on the pension contributions of high earners would not apply to politicians, Mr McTernan phoned him and delivered a 12-minute tirade during which he allegedly "dropped the f-bomb" at least 30 times. 
 
 Questioned, more recently, about the fact he holds a "457" temporary work visa - a visa the government claims is being widely abused and is trying to crack down on - Ms Gillard's communications director called it "hardly fucking relevant". He was furious earlier this month when a radio journalist, Ben Fordham, revealed that he had "offered to do a regular spot on your show next year if we lose the election". 
 
 The Prime Minister - pictured next to a bucket of knitting needles, with balls of wool fetchingly strewn around - does enjoy knitting, which she describes, along with watching the US TV drama series Game of Thrones, as her favourite hobby. 
 
 The photo, though, simply gave her opponents new ammunition, producing headlines such as "PM's last-stich bid to woo voters". An opposition frontbencher, Christopher Pyne, declared: "We know the Prime Minister is good at spinning a yarn and now we have the photographic proof of it." 
 
 As for the guillotine assocation: come September, it is Ms Gillard herself who is facing the chop.
– In a move that is definitely, absolutely, totally not a publicity stunt, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is knitting a kangaroo for the next heir to the British throne, Sky News reports. Gillard discussed the "cute project" for the progeny of Prince William and Kate Middleton in the new issue of Australian Women's Weekly, which came complete with photos showing Gillard surrounded by yarn. "In terms of knitting for Kate's baby—I knit for babies, in part, because they are smaller projects," she explained. Despite the fact that Gillard's press office actually pitched the story to the magazine, the office insists it's not a PR move, but that hasn't stopped people from mocking the PM. "I'm keen to discuss options for an interview/photoshoot with the PM, ideally for the July edition," reads the email from Gillard's director of communications to the magazine. "As I mentioned the PM is putting together a care package for Kate Middleton, who is due in mid-July. ... I'm picturing a story that includes the patterns for the items the PM will knit so your readers can knit their own royal blanket or something." Critics are calling the article "contrived," among other less-than-nice things, the Guardian reports; the Independent calls it "a public relations disaster." The article conveniently arrives just months before September's general election, which the controversial PM is predicted to lose. Gillard has previously stirred the pot with Sandwichgate and her epic takedown of a sexist rival.