This week the fortunes of Julia Gillard went on a roller coaster ride that typified almost every day of minority government, writes Barrie Cassidy. Is this lack of respect both for women and for the office of prime minister a taste of events to come in the lead up to the election?

Thursday's unemployment figures would ordinarily be an important pointer to the outcome of the next election, because historically the strength of the economy is central.

Essentially, they show that the more pessimistic forecasts missed the mark, again. The economy is holding up OK and certainly fears that Australia might be drifting towards recession are unfounded.

But let that be the last of what we hear of Thursday. Wednesday wins the week hands down.

What a day it was, when the fortunes of Julia Gillard went on a roller coaster ride that typified almost every day of minority government.

The reporting of the "gender" speech started mid-afternoon Tuesday with the release of the transcript and video. That focused on the Prime Minister warning that Tony Abbott in government would reopen the abortion debate, and that men in blue ties would again suffocate the influence of women in Cabinet.

By Wednesday morning, the tactic had run off the rails.

Unfavourable comparisons were being made with the "misogyny speech" in the Federal Parliament which tore into the fabric of the national debate for its spontaneity and passion. This effort seemed contrived, scripted and, in the circumstances of renewed leadership speculation, somehow desperate.

Feminists worried that it seemed to pitch an argument that women should be supported merely because, well because they are women. More widely, the references to abortion appeared to be gratuitous and unnecessary. When did abortion re-emerge as an issue? How often in the past have the left complained bitterly that the right tended to inject that topic into the debate whenever it suited them politically?

And then news broke of a disgustingly sexist and offensive mock menu related to a Liberal Party fund-raising dinner. Suddenly the gender speech had new resonance and credibility.

Gillard told a news conference: "Let's go through the pattern of behaviour here. Mr Abbott has personally gone and stood next to signs that describe me in a sexist way. We have had the Young Liberals hosting a function where jokes were cracked about the death of my father. And now we have Mr Brough (Mal Brough who hosted the "menu" function) and Mr Hockey at a function with this grossly sexist and offensive menu on display. Join the dots."

Ministers Craig Emerson and Tanya Plibersek went in hard, as you would on the available evidence. Such puerile and vile characterisation has no place even on the fringes of politics. Gillard called for Brough to be disendorsed. It was certainly reasonable in the circumstances to demand action beyond the usual emptiness of condemnations.

These kinds of slurs demonstrate an innate lack of respect both for women and for the office of prime minister.

And Joe Hockey's response, that Gillard had once in the parliament called him "fat" seemed mind numbingly distant from any appreciation of the concept of moral equivalence.

But then the debate shifted again.

The Coalition released an email from the author of the menu, the owner of the restaurant, who argued he had produced it as a joke, "never for public distribution." The email took the heat off Mal Brough, and by extension, Tony Abbott.

The explanation however, raised several points. Firstly, why then did Mal Brough personally apologise for something that he now says, didn't happen. That is, the menu was not circulated. Secondly, why did it take so long for the explanation to emerge? And finally how plausible is it anyway, that somebody would go to so much trouble producing such elaborate material just for the amusement of a few kitchen hands?

But be that as it may, the day ended with headlines suggesting the whole affair had backfired on Julia Gillard. That in itself seemed to be a rather perverse analysis given that she had been the victim of a vile attack. How she responded to that attack, moderately, reasonably, or over the top, is hardly the main point. But her main weapons from the "gender" speech had been blunted.

In an entirely different category was the grubby performance by Perth radio host Howard Sattler. Fairfax, his employer, described it as 'disrespectful and irrelevant', a pathetic response. It was offensive, crass and unacceptable and will remain as a stain on the company for as long as he is employed by Fairfax.

In the end the whole episode was a taste of events to come. The atmosphere is toxic, the issues more left field than mainstream, and the outcomes bumped this way and that by unpredictable contributions from within the major parties and outside of them.

Only one thing is for sure. It's not the economy, stupid. Not in Australia in 2013.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders. View his full profile here.