The former Prime Minister takes over from over from Jeff Kennett on July 1 and turned barrel girl at the exclusive Women of Melbourne lunch at Maha restaurant this week to help raise funds for charity partner Beyond Blue.

The winning ticket she drew from a silver ice bucket for a $5650 three-month lease on a Mercedes-Benz C-Class Cabriolet C200 was her own.

Looking around the room as if she were wondering whether she should accept the prize as to “travel in style and experience the sportiness and luxury of open-top driving”, the former PM got a “get-out-of-jail card” from Women of Melbourne emcee Jen Hansen.

The former PM was told she deserved it.

“You’ve done so much for this country,” Hansen gushed.

Gillard was quick to snap up the lease on the Mercedes.

“I’ve spent a lot of my life drawing ALP raffles where generally there wasn’t a prize and if you did happen to win the meat tray you had to give it back or you would have been torn limb from limb,” said the former Labor leader. “So, thank you very much.”

But did the former PM come to her senses after all?

A day later, Mercedes got a call from Beyond Blue asking if the charity could instead use the highly-desirable convertible. Maybe Gillard and Beyond Blue could share it and who wouldn’t want to swan around in Mercedes convertible?

Gillard’s partner Tim Mathieson used to clock up the kilometres driving around Victoria selling shampoo.

Gillard paid $4243 to the Department of Finance back in 2007 because Mathieson misused her taxpayer-funded car while flogging his haircare products.

Official records show Gillard leases a car on the taxpayer dollar thanks to her entitlements as a former PM, which also include a pension understood to be in excess of $300,000.

To quote Jerry Seinfeld, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”, but Gillard could have thrown her ticket back in the bucket to avoid murky thoughts about a conflict of interest, or put it up for bids to help add to the $22,000 raised by the lunch for Beyond Blue.

A Gillard spokesperson later told Page 13 said she asked Beyond Blue to see if arrangements could be made with Mercedes for the prize to be used for further fundraising.

“Former Prime Minister Gillard was delighted to attend the Women of Melbourne lunch, which was fundraising for Beyond Blue,” the spokesperson said.

“Ms Gillard was asked to draw the raffle and did draw out her own ticket for first prize. Ms Gillard immediately suggested she redraw but the MC and crowd insisted Ms Gillard take the prize.

“That afternoon Ms Gillard asked the CEO of Beyond Blue to see if arrangements could be made with Mercedes for Beyond Blue to use the prize for further fundraising, for example as a raffle prize at a future Beyond Blue event.”

But Gillard was not the only Beyond Blue luminary to strike it lucky.

Beyond Blue deputy CEO Susan Anderson was jumping for joy when Gillard called her name as the winner of a private dining experience for eight at Maha valued at $2200.

In Anderson’s case, it seemed there was not a second’s pause in accepting.

The Beyond Blue deputy got very touchy when she discovered Page 13 was sitting next to Gillard, declaring it was a journalist-free zone.

Good grief, surely the former Prime Minister of Australia can handle a journo in her vicinity or would it remind her of those bad-hair days in front of the Canberra press gallery?

It’s enough to make you feel beyond blue.