PM Gillard has come under fire and been widely ridiculed for the photos, which show her in an armchair surrounded by balls of yarn knitting a baby kangaroo for Prince William and Kate’s baby.

“We know the prime minister could spin a yarn,” said senior liberal Christopher Pyne. “But now we have a picture to prove it.”

The traditional feminine presentation of Gillard has been attacked for its incongruity with someone in her position, some even going as far as saying that it could be the photo that brings to end her reign as Australia’s first female PM.

Yet there are others who have defended the photo,

Is Gillard herself likely to be worried about it? Not likely, if the accompanying interview published on Woman’s Weekly website is anything to go by. 

“I am not a person who agonises,” Gillard says in the interview. 

“You always look back over your life and say there are some things that you might have liked to have done [differently] … but I think I’ll be really comfortable with the choices I’ve made.”

One person who has defended Gillard latest media outing is former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who has said that the best way forward for Gillard is to ignore the media bias against her.

“If they have made the decision that they want to get her out there, being thought about and looked at in a different way then I can see that as being part of a strategy,” Campbell told The Guardian newspaper of the knitting photos.

“If it is just a tactical thing to say let’s show Julia in a different light, then that won’t work but I suspect it is part of a broader strategy.”

Time shall tell if this is the photo that ignited a new Gillard in the public consciousness, or was the moment when it all went wrong.

Photo: Getty.