And don't for a moment think if you are a woman and upset that you, say, get paid 17.5 per cent less than the man you work alongside or you've been denied promotion yet again that you can complain about this without being accused of unleashing a ''gender war''. No, the rights of women (including the right to even mention these rights) and the prime minister's rights at work have been thoroughly trashed - by the opposition, the media and now by the Labor Party caucus. Including, incredibly, many, maybe most, of its women members. Those ministers who honourably resigned on Wednesday night did not include a woman. Not one of the nine women ministers showed any sisterly solidarity. Do these women seriously think that it was OK for our first woman prime minister to be hounded out of office by bullying, duplicity and an outrageous trashing of her reputation? Do they seriously think they are not also contaminated by the crude culture of misogyny that has now enveloped so much of the Labor Party? On the day Julia Gillard's signature policy revolution, the Gonski reforms, became law, her prime ministership was defamed and denigrated, characterised as being littered with errors. Those who tore her down gave her no credit for any of her accomplishments as our country's leader. Not for the 532 pieces of legislation that, by Wednesday night, had passed both houses of Parliament this sitting. Remember, this was a hung Parliament where every piece of legislation needed to be painstakingly negotiated. Julia Gillard told me recently (in an interview that will be published this weekend in my digital magazine Anne Summers Reports) that because of the minority Parliament, ''It's more inclusive on the one hand and that's not a bad thing, but it can be slower and can distort the process a little bit.''

By far the hardest but the most worthwhile piece of legislation to be passed, Gillard said, was the carbon price, which she is confident will endure. Yet when Kevin Rudd spoke after his shameful coup on Wednesday night and praised ''Julia'' for being ''a remarkable reformer'', he did not mention a single one of her prime ministerial accomplishments. Not the carbon price. Not the NDIS. Not the Murray-Darling agreement. Not the Gonski reforms. And certainly not her historic agreement with the new Chinese leadership that ensures an unprecedented annual leadership dialogue between our two countries, something that Rudd while he was prime minister was unable to bring off. No, Rudd did not mention any of these things. ''In Julia's case let me say this, if it were not for Julia we would not have the Fair Work Act,'' he said. ''If it were not for Julia, we would not have a national scheme which ensures that the literacy and numeracy performance of Australian schools is tested regularly and that interventions occur to lift those students who are doing poorly.'' All things she accomplished while she was deputy prime minister. And, the subtext was, while he - the man mocking her by outfitting himself in a blue tie for the coup - was prime minister. Expect Julia Gillard's record of reform to be swiftly excised from the political memory of the Labor Party. It started on Wednesday night and will continue apace.

Her treacherous colleagues will have nothing good to say about her. The hypocrisy is breathtaking as well as shameful. We treated our first woman prime minister disgracefully while she was in office and now that she has been driven out, it seems she is going to be denied even the solace of having her extraordinary range of achievements recognised. On the contrary, her final weeks look like being characterised as inept and wrong-footed. (Therefore making it OK to get rid of her.) So while it's OK for us to laud the tactics of a senator in Texas standing up (literally) for the abortion rights of women in her state, just let the leader of the ALP point to similar risks to the rights of women in Australia and she is howled down by a cacophony of cackling that she is a political dope who has done herself untold damage. Well that bit was right. Julia Gillard has paid a very high price for warning us that abortion is once again set to become ''the political plaything of men who think they know better''. Not true, scoffed the chorus, including many women. Abortion no longer an issue. On Thursday a Senate committee tabled its report on John Madigan's private senator's bill proposing restrictions to the Medicare rebate for certain types of abortion.

No longer an issue? But truth, like decency, is no longer part of our political currency it seems. Anne Summers is a journalist, author and editor. She headed the Hawke government's Office of the Status of Women. @SummersAnne