Australia's first female Prime Minister

Historic moment. I wish Julia Gillard well.

As the first female, single*, atheist, red-headed PM was sworn in by the first female GG I raised a metaphorical glass (it was too early in the day for a real one) and wished her well.

Politics being what it is, none of the above will mean diddly squat at this year's election though.

*I'm not sure about that one. But I got it from twitter which is almost as reliable as Wikipedia.

the hair is dyed :D

NO! No! nononono! Damn.

And there, my international friends, you see a little of the Australian attitude to women who achieve high office: Are they married? Is their hair dyed? But I'm sure that digfish wishes her well as did justjim.

given her partner is/was a hairdresser the colour is particularly bad!!!

Thrin, I'm a red-head and can spot a fake a mile off. I guess there will be the usual jokes along the lines of 'fiery red-head', 'never trust a woman whose hair is such a bright shade of vermillion' etc, etc.

to quote Jeeves: ""I would always hesitate to recommend as a life's companion a young lady with such a vivid shade of red hair. Red hair, sir, is dangerous"

#6 I'll have you know that I am quite able to separate my considered views on politics from my unbridled lust for redheads.

Am I the only Aussi - on LT - to say that I am Sad & Angry
about the way Kevin Rudd was shafted.

The Labor Party has always "eaten its own Children" and seems to self destruct
every 20 years or so.

I am old enough to remember that picture of "Gough"? (or was it Caldwell?)
waiting outside the "faceless men" Caucus room.

I am not full of outrage or fury.
I am just sad and suspect that that f**kw*t Abbott might win on the backlash.

I'm off to watch Masterchef :)

Yes Guido, Rudd hasn't done anything very wrong, so it seems a bad idea to have shafted him. Wishing Gillard all the best though; she's a very capable and astute politician.

Her hair colour isn't important.

Her hair colour isn't important.

Nor, theoretically, is her being female, non-married, or an atheist. Watch out for Mr Budgie Smuggler making an issue out of any/all of them though.

I'd rather emote about Peter Temple winning the Miles Franklin! I'm so happy about a favourite author of mine, and a great writer, winning this prestigious literary prize.

I really like Julia Gillard - I just don't like the way she became our first female Prime Minister.

For once I thought when Kevin Rudd was elected as leader of the Labor party without belonging to a faction that we could move forward without the "faceless men" but alas, it seems not.
Guido, I am also furious and disappointed at the shabby treatment dished out to him last night and today and for once, (I hesitate to say this) but I agree with Tony Abbott - it is a shameful way to treat an elected Prime Minister.

I thought that Julia Gillard would eventually succeed to the office of PM but I didn't dream it would be in such a manner as it was.

However, she will now have a very difficult job to do but I have no doubt that she will do it very capably and I wish her well.

Its strange, I also expected Julia to become PM one day.
No, not like Costello and Howard. I just expected a "normal" transition after Kevin Rudd had realised his "time" was up.
No. No 4 terms plus.
Thus, this hurts me. And I am also frightened for the "party".
I have already decided to vote "against" my states Labor party (Vic)
but what do the "greens" really offer?
And at the Federal level, what are my choices?

Maybe Julia thought she slip a coup in under the radar while the rest of Australia was glued to the World Cup Soccer.

I liked Rudd quite a bit, and was glad when he was elected. He didn't get everything right, but I was dissapointed in the way the party booted him up the rear like that.

All the same, I wish Julia well. It's about bloody time Australia had a female PM.

On an off note, there is an article in the LA Times (an American newspaper mind, not an Aussie one), talking about it, and they quoted one anonymous person who said "Australia has a single, unwed aithest for a Prime Minister. I have never felt so repressed.". My GOD mate, your on your high horse! She isn't single, she has a partner! And there is no requirement that a PM has to be married! I doubt every single one has been. And how the hell does someones religious affirmations repress you! If anything, it's the Family First's (the Christian party) Senator, Steven Fielding, who is being repressive, when he says thing like comparing same sex marraige to incest (this was late last year. Sorry, I have just written an essay on a news article about this for uni, and am a bit riled up).

You go, Suzie, just go girl!

I love the fact that JG is 'unwed' and atheist (and red-headed), but I don't think any of that is relevant. She is a politician which means that no matter how much you admire any of the things she says that she stand for, you will be able to tell that she is telling lies by the fact that her lips are moving!

For them, it's all about getting (re)elected.

#20,

Do you know that trite comment:

"you will be able to tell that she is telling lies by the fact that her lips are moving!"

is part of the reason why we have the politicians we have?

Or would you like to try another cliche?

When donkeys bray, fool LT'ers talk.

All the same.

Or would you like to try another cliche?

No, I'll stick with that one. I wouldn't trust one single one of the bastards to tell the truth if they thought their seat depended on it.

Life long Labour supporter here (but only a recent Australian citizen), and today has been a day of very mixed emotions for me.

I am very disappointed at the way Rudd was treated by the Party. At the same time, I believe he has found himself in a situation of his own making. By all accounts he has been very difficult to work with and has never been popular in the party; thus, when the polls show a slide in popularity his faults would no longer be overlooked.

But he was a good man and did many good things.

As the father of three daughters (and even before that, a lifelong feminist!), I am delighted we now have a female PM. I think Julia Gillard will make a good Prime Minister. I hope she doesn't "lurch to the right" as many have suggested. I wish her well. I hope and pray that that clown Abbott doesn't get elected. It will mean more cuts (to training positions, to education, to health, to national infrastructure, complete abandonment of the NBN to only name a few; it will be like the Howard years without the intellectual depth) that will make our country worse than it is and drag us back decades. God fucking help us all.

As for agreeing with Abbott with his mealy mouthed words in Parliament today that it was a shabby way to treat a PM, give me a break. Take your practiced sense of self-righteous indignation, "mate", and shove it up your arse. You're a self-admitted liar, misogynist, techno-phobe and right-wing loon. No one buys those crocodile tears you're shedding for Kevin Rudd; least of all him.

Well said, omaca.

I think a lot of pople voted for the Rudd government to get rid of Work Choices. If they vote for Abbott, we'll get his new version. The lies about Work Choices and Iraq are still recent, so I'm hoping that everyone will remember why Howard's government was voted out.

Suzie, I read your post as that person comparing their much more conservative lifestyle to Julia Gillard's and feeling repressed, not that Gillard was repressing them.

Ditto omaca, especially the bit about Abbott.

And Julia is a real redhead but, like most women her age, she dyes the grey out of it. And why I am contributing to this ridiculous topic???

I think the original Twitter text may have been mis-represented by teh American newspaper. The famous Twitter quote was along the lines of "We have a single redhead living in sin with no kids and she's an atheist. I've never felt so well represented". A great pity that Kevin Rudd didn't realise that the only way to achieve things is to delegate and encourage teamwork - clutching decision-making and policy-making to one's own breast is a sure way to become totally loathed as, unfortunately, he had become by his colleagues. And, in the end, his own disloyalty was to have his staff questioning MPs whether they had been approached by Julia Gillard - while she was vehemently and publicly defending him.

And you know this because YOU read it in a murdock newspaper?

#21 & 27 Come on guido47, surely everyone has the right to an opinion. One of the reasons why Libarything works so well is the, usually, friendly atmosphere. We all love books - let's keep this a happy place.

I can hardly believe it... the Daily Telegraph today has devoted many, many column inches of news print to Julia Gillard's hair over the last decade. How is Ms Gillard's hair even remotely connected to her ability to govern the country?

I'm sure Julia's hair will govern Australia very well.

As did John Howards.

#32
John Howard was bald - Janette was the one with the hair.

I rest my case, your honour.

Dear guido47 (Message #27)

I know it because I was told by two of the number of Labor backbenchers to whom I'm close and with whom or with whose staffers I've spoken this week; because I have both met and know Rudd, Swan and a number of other senior (or were senior since we can't be sure what changes Gillard will make) members from some years working for Labor in various advisory positions and have no trouble believing it of Rudd.

After 20 years of working with governments all over Australia, there's quite a lot of politicians I know who save me having to rely on the "murdock newspaper" as you quaintly spell it.

Perhaps you shouldn't post if you're feeling upset. It just shows things about your intelligence levels that I'm sure you'd rather others didn't realise.

You were going so well until that last sentence, kgpittman. Attack the ideas, not the person.

You lost the plot after the first paragraph, kgpittman. Perhaps you shouldn't post if you're feeling nasty.

Dear Group,
Yes I apologise for any "Cheap shots" I have made.
Yes, I was emotional.
Every 20 or so years, as I see my beloved party rip it self apart, I do become
emotional.
I doubt I will still be alive in 2030, but if I am, and if Labor repeats it's history,
"my rage will be something to behold..."
If I can get out of my chair!

Yours, Guido.

PS. My Cats have given me greater intellect wound's than any words a LT member might inflict.

Nobly said, nobbly Guido!

Good on you Guido!

#35 Big whoop! Go straight to the naughty corner for being mean.

I'm not going to talk politics in here, but I'll share an anecdote from last weekend. I was having a few beers with my brother-in-law at the Kambah Tavern on Sunday evening. The jokes had already started - from one wag further down the bar: "What does Gillard use to dye her hair?" Answer : "Rudd's blood."

I enjoyed the summing up of Julie as Madam Guillardine

Is That the Kambah tavern in Belconnan?

I do well remember it and the other 2? Taverns (I was more fond of the Irish Pub on the corner) in the 1970's in that square when they were first set up.

When I was young and healthy, that area was just a bare paddock I used to run over!

I'm a bit late joining this thread but I just want to say I found the biography a really easy and very interesting read...The Making of Julia Gillard by Jacqueline Kent. Do yourself a favour as Molly would say, and read it. spose I should read the Abbott one too...is there one?

What I find really interesting about all this is the role of the media.
Rudd's popularity was stratospheric. If he was hard to get along with, the public didn't know it. If he sometimes spoke gobbledygook, the public was filtering that out. If he had a hissy fit the public didn't care.
From early this year there was a sudden *flood* of negative stories about him. Everywhere. It was as if this nice, good man that everybody apparently liked and admired had suddenly morphed into a monster. The polls plummeted, John Howard in a white pantsuit took over and the man's reputation and achievements were systematically trashed.
What provoked the media to turn on him, that's what I want to know...

@43 actually the Kambah tavern is in Kambah, a southside suburb. Belconnen is northside. :)

May the best woman win!

An old cliche, but a goodie,
Vote early and vote often :-)

I took my franchise out for a little exercise this morning. Don't forget to exercise yours.

I have just discovered this thread and in the light of today's politics it makes quite interesting reading.

We are almost a year down the track; how things change ...

I think Julia should fall metaphorically on her own sword. her reasons for ousting Rudd should be smacking her around the back of her head.

If Julia remains PM going into the next GE, then the ALP will be slaughtered. We would then be faced with an Australian environment that has TA at the helm, steering us into the black murky waters of environmental degradation, state school desolation and the subversion of worker's rights.

She's still a lot better than Abbott and the country isn't in bad shape. Rupert Murdoch should fall on his sword and end the Australian's campaign against Gillard and the carbon tax.

> 52

I agree that she is preferable to TA, but then again I'm going to be biased, seeing that my preferences run along the lines of a truly secular state, an equitable funding system for state schools and a genuine balance of rights for workers and employers rather than a system that discriminates against the labour force.

I would say, give the girl a fair go, we Aussies are good at that.

Would it not be sooo nice if TA and Julia could agree on something.

> 54

I think to be fair, the fault lies in this matter with TA.

Sulking? Obstructionist? Wrecking? Spitting the dummy since the GE?

I hope Rudd falls on his sword when Julia wins the leadership ballot tomorrow.

I still think she's doing a good job, and she should be allowed to get on and do it.

I agree with you, just give the girl a go and she will prove herself to be the one for the job.

I wish that Steven Smith would put his hand up for this ballot. I think that we need a clean sweep at this stage.

Any kind of sweep at this point, I'd call it ridiculous if it wasn't so bloody depressing. These people have been given the responsibility of governing our country and instead are giving us the ALP intepretation of Days Of Our Lives. For pity's sake, sort yourselves out and get on with doing what we're paying you to do.

and we the tax payer are bankrolling it, why are we paying for there party shit, thy are meant to be running the country not playing around, unfortunately don't see the other side as having anything to offer. Has kept them off the front page for a few days, maybe that is labours tactic?
Thy should be sorting there party problems over the weekend not on our time.
Sack the lot for ineptitude.

I'd give it Albo. He's about the only one who's shown much integrity lately. I can't raise any enthusiasm for either of these two. Sadly I can't see this ending well. For a good analysis of where the ALP are at I recommend Looking for the light on the hill.

Frankly, the only person who would inspire my primary vote for Labour is Penny Wong.

Whoever I vote for I will end up with Julie Bishop but my son-in-law who is a rusted on Labor voter says that he is going to vote Liberal at the next election.

Is anyone in election mode or are we all thoroughly sick of it. Only 4 weeks to go and counting!

Thoroughly sick of it. I can't wait for it to be over. At least I am watching less TV ...

sick

Red is red.

I find nothing wrong with a person correcting what is obviously an error of nature. Julia just is a red head.