1st Australian female PM

[gabriel]

No, I've been reading. Thatcher at least had the grace to go before she was pushed.

I think this is a world first.

A PM shoved out before the end of his 1st term and a woman waiting to take his place.

Trust Australia to be the trail blazer.

Go us.

[gabriel]

But she says she won't move into the official residences until the next election which she has to call.

Well, Barack and Michelle are gonna come calling soon.

It will be Barack's 3rd attempt at a visit.

H'm....

[beth]

This is confusing. Off to read what it's all about.

[beth]

Found a couple of things - both interesting. Obviously I don't understand squat about your political system, Gabe, but am picking up an bit here and there.


Australia has first woman PM as Gillard replaces Rudd

Julia Gillard has been sworn in as Australia's first female prime minister after a surprise leadership vote in the ruling Labor Party ousted Kevin Rudd

Mr Rudd chose not to take part in the ballot knowing he would suffer an embarrassing defeat to his deputy.

Ms Gillard said she believed "a good government was losing its way" and vowed to revive Labor ahead of a general election expected in October.

The party has suffered a sharp drop in support in opinion polls this year.

A turn-around on a carbon trading scheme and a wrangle over a controversial mining tax led to a sharp slide in approval ratings for Mr Rudd's government.

Ms Gillard, who was deputy prime minister before the surprise Wednesday night challenge to Mr Rudd, stood unopposed at a vote of the Labor Party's 112 members of parliament at a meeting on Thursday morning.

Treasurer Wayne Swan was elected the new deputy leader, also unopposed.

Ms Gillard was born in Barry Island in south Wales, moving to Australia with her family at the age of four.

Emotional

Emerging victorious from the party vote at Parliament House in Canberra, Ms Gillard told reporters: "I came to the view that a good government was losing its way.

believe too I have a responsibility to make sure at the next election that Labor is there at its strongest."

On the issue of a planned "super tax" on mining, which had dogged Mr Rudd, she said she wanted a consensus.

"We need to do more than consult, we need to negotiate... we need to end this uncertainty," she said.

"Today, I am throwing open the government's door to the mining industry and in return I ask the mining industry to open its mind."

On Mr Rudd, she said: "He was the leader who saw us through the global financial crisis.

"He came within a breath of brokering an international agreement on climate change."

Mr Rudd, 52, repeatedly choked back tears as he and his family appeared before the media in Canberra.

"I have given it my absolute all and in that spirit I am proud of the achievements we have delivered to make this country fairer," he said.

Mr Rudd said he would devote himself to helping Labor get re-elected, adding that they were "a good team led by a good prime minister".

"I'm proud of the fact that we kept Australia out of the global financial crisis," he said.

"I'm proud of the fact that had we not done so, we would had had half a million Australians out there out of work."

Opposition Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott dismissed the change of leadership, saying Ms Gillard was committed to the "same dud policies" of her predecessor.

"They've changed the salesman but they haven't changed the product," he told reporters.

Fall from grace

Mr Rudd had called a late-night news conference on Wednesday to announce the ballot after Ms Gillard said she would challenge him for the party leadership.

Kevin Rudd: ''We have thrown our absolute all at this''
Mr Rudd, who led Labor to a landslide election victory against the Liberal government in 2007, blamed "a number of factional leaders" within the party for plotting against him.

Mr Rudd had initially insisted he would stand in the leadership ballot, but the BBC's Nick Bryant in Australia said that by Thursday morning Mr Rudd could not even muster enough support to contend the ballot.

Mr Rudd started this year as the most popular Australian prime minister in three decades and was widely expected to win the federal election expected in October with ease.

But his popularity plummeted following a number of policy setbacks, our correspondent adds.

He shelved the centrepiece of his environmental strategy, an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which led to accusations of political cowardice.

Mr Rudd then entered into an advertising war with the country's powerful mining sector over his plans for a super tax on their "super profits".

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10393918.stm

[beth]

Personal Background

Father of Australian PM Julia Gillard tells of family struggle



The parents of Australia's first female prime minister have described how the family's struggle with poverty in Wales laid the foundations for their daughter to become one of the most powerful women in the world.

John Gillard, 91, said that being born to an impoverished family in a small Welsh mining town, the second youngest of seven siblings, made him determined to see his daughter succeed.

Although he excelled at school, he was sent out to work at age 12 by a father who said "we can't afford such nonsense" as education.

Ever since, he has harboured a passion for learning and fought to get Julia Gillard, and her sister Alison, the best start in life

"My passion was education," he said. "Because I had been deprived of a proper education I made a firm affirmation, and Moira agreed, that if our children had the academic potential we could bring it to fruition, and we made sure that happened."

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Gillard, 91, described how he made ends meet in Barry by taking a string of jobs including working in grocery shop, as a coal inspector and as a policeman.

Julia was a sickly child who suffered from recurring chest infections and had to stay inside during the winter months.

Mrs Gillard said: "She didn't get very far because she did have an illness so except for the summers she stayed indoors. When it was warm we used to go down to the sand, there was a nice park where she liked to sit and put her feet in the pool."

But the cold weather put her health at risk and a local doctor warned that if she wasn't moved to warmer climes, her condition would deteriorate.

Mr Gillard said: "The doctor said that if we stayed in Wales she would develop pneumonia and bronchitis so we decided that the correct place to go was Australia."

Despite moving thousands of miles away from Wales, Mr Gillard's experience of poverty made its mark on the family.

Julia showed immediate promise at school, he said, developing into "a brilliant scholar".

At Adelaide University she was taken under the wing of a vice chancellor who picked her to sit on the university board.

Mr Gillard insists that his daughter would have thrived in any industry, but doesn't hide his delight that she decided on politics.

"Julia would have succeeded in any profession, she could have done medicine or physics but fortuitously she was advised by a friend of ours to do law with the intent of later becoming a political player," he said. "She joined the Labour Party at age 15 and away she went, I let her loose on the world."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/7857337/Father-of-Australian-PM-Julia-Gillard-tells-of-family-struggle.html

[mouse]

Jun 27, 2010 20:49:46 GMT -5 beth said:

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Gillard, 91, described how he made ends meet in Barry by taking a string of jobs including working in grocery shop, as a coal inspector and as a policeman.

bit of a drifter then.....who eventually made the big change

[beth]

According to this article, Gillard has broken another barrier since she is an atheist.


Australia's New Leader Is An Atheist: Americans, Don't Try This At Home!

When Julia Gillard became Australia's first female prime minister last week she quickly earned international headlines and received a congratulatory call from President Obama for her accomplishment.

Now it turns out she's broken another barrier that, for American voters at least, would be far more daunting than her gender: She doesn't believe in God.

"No, I don't," she told an interviewer at Australia's national radio, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) who asked her point blank if she believed in God. "I'm not a religious person."

"I was brought up in the Baptist Church, but during my adult life I've, you know, found a different path. I'm of course a great respecter of religious beliefs, but they're not my

Gillard was a studious Christian as a child, winning prizes for catechism lessons and for memorizing Bible verses. But, she noted, "I've made decisions in my adult life about my own views."

The new Australian P.M. is known for her razor-sharp debating skills and direct answers to direct questions, and that was also evident in her interview with ABC radio in Melbourne about her religion, or lack of it.

"I am not going to pretend a faith I don't feel," she said, according to the audio. "And for people of faith the greatest compliment I could pay to them is to respect their genuinely held beliefs and not to engage in some pretense about mine. I think it's not the right thing."

It's hard to imagine any U.S. politician saying such a thing about religion, or being so straightforward about most anything.

Our pols have their reasons, of course. Polls consistently show that even as Americans grow increasingly comfortable with voting for women, racial or religious minorities, or a homosexual, they are still not likely to back an atheist.

The latest Gallup poll on that question, posed in 2007, showed that 53 percent of American voters said they would not vote for an atheist for president -- the highest negatives of any of the categories. (Gallup has not asked about a Muslim candidate, and odds are that would score even lower. Cold comfort for atheists.) Some 43 percent said they would not vote for a homosexual candidate, and 55 percent said they would be willing to back a gay or lesbian for president.

In 2007, the Secular Coalition for America offered a $1,000 prize to anyone who could guess the name the "highest level atheist, agnostic, humanist or any other kind of non-theist currently holding elected public office in the United States." California's Pete Stark, a 19-term Democratic House member from the Bay Area, proved to be the correct answer, as he acknowledged he is "a Unitarian who does not believe in a Supreme Being."

But it's not like he created a rush on atheist candidates, and of course in the next year the victorious contender for president was Barack Obama, probably the most overtly religious Democratic candidate in years.

Julia Gillard, on the other hand, was able to say that she shared the values of her fellow Australians, if not their religious beliefs.

"What I can say to Australians broadly of course is that I believe you can be a person of strong principle and values from a variety of perspectives. And I've outlined mine to you."

And that seems to be working. An online poll at The Australian newspaper showed that two-thirds of the nearly 15,000 readers who responded to a question about Gillard's beliefs said they didn't care about her "lack of a religious faith."

www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/30/australias-new-leader-is-an-atheist-americans-dont-try-this/

[gabriel]

Yeah well, that's true enough. As a whole, we don't give a rat's about religion or affairs or whatever.

Personally, I couldn't care less what she doesn't believe in. If she's a true humanist, OK by me. But I think she should have kept that particular bit of info to herself.

Because no matter what The Australian says, it doesn't represent the heartland of Australia. And there are a lot of people unhappy with her lack of belief in a religion - it could be Buddhism for all we care. As long as she believes in something.

[beth]

I see what you mean - why flaunt personal opinions/beliefs?

But, here's the thing ... they asked her flat outright. She might have lied, she could have said she didn't discuss things that personal (which would have resulted in more digging by the media) or she could have told the truth - which she apparently decided to do. I king of admire her for that.

[gabriel]

Well that's OK but her statement that she is an athiest is really not going down very well. I mean, when she became PM, she had to swear an oath that included the Queen. And that includes defending the Queen as the head of the Anglican faith. Now that's all well and good, but when is an atheist gonna go out of her way and defend something she doesn't believe in?

You see the dichotomy?

Gabriel

[nikki]

Jun 25, 2010 10:33:38 GMT -5 @mikemarshall said:

It always amuses me that some people seem to consider a politician's gender so important!

Why does it amaze you? It wasn't that long ago that women could not vote in Australia. The fact we now have a female PM is huge. Its not the only factor that will determine the way I vote, but it is a big one!

[beth]

I think she's going to be a noticeable personality on the world stage. Here she is, already doing something .. not particularly original, but better than doing nothing.

Actually, it sounds like a good idea to get the clunkers off the road.


Australia Prime Minister offers 'cash for old cars' climate policy

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has pledged 400-million Australian dollars to take old cars off the road and vowed to impose tougher fuel standards as part of her election policy on climate change.

Julia Gillard says she will offer a two thousand dollar rebate for people to trade in a car built before 1995 for greener hybrid models.

She says the scrapping and recycling of 200-thousand cars under the policy will save one million tonnes of carbon.

It's believed there are up to two million high-polluting cars on Australian roads.

The prime minister says if elected on August 21, she will also impose mandatory carbon emissions standards on new cars weighing three-point-five tonnes or less from 2015.

She says that will save up to two-point-six million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

The pledges come after the prime minister's keenly-awaited climate policy launch received a tepid response, after she announced a citizens assembly to guide political action on global warming.

australianetworknews.com/stories/201007/2963227.htm?desktop

[gabriel]

Cash for clunkers includes grunt cars built in the 90's that don't have anything wrong with them and are on their way to becoming collectibles. I know, I have one. My V6 Falcon (which is not my only car before you start wondering) has more grunt than most new versions.

It's a ploy for votes. And she's not doing well. Kevin Rudd being shoved out as PM during his 1st term is not sitting well. At all. She's got problems. And her school teacher approach to the media is not going down well either. We're not children.

She's in trouble in Queensland. Kevin Rudd country. Serious trouble.

He's been over in NY scouting out possibilities at the UN. I think he'll go there.

Gillard stabbed Rudd in the back. She has to be prepared for it to happen to her.