Asia

Home page

Asia

New Australian Leader Seen as Softer Alternative to Rudd

24 June 2010 20:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Australiaâ€™s new prime minister, Julia Gillard, recently joked that she had more chance of being hired to play professional football than she did of ousting her former boss, Kevin Rudd, APA reports quoting The New York Times.
But after months of insisting that she would not challenge Mr. Rudd’s leadership, Ms. Gillard seized the reins on Thursday in a surprise revolt that left Mr. Rudd fighting back tears at a news conference.
Ms. Gillard had long been seen as Mr. Ruddâ€™s likely successor because of her popularity and rank within the Labor Party. She is widely regarded as a softer alternative to Mr. Rudd, whose rigid, bookish personality had become irritating to an electorate frustrated by recent policy bungles.
Ms. Gillard, 48, has received much praise for her calm, clear performances in Parliament. Her easygoing, colloquial style stands in direct contrast to Mr. Ruddâ€™s wonkish demeanor.
Fighting for the party leadership had been a â€œtough decision,â€ she said, one that she chose to undertake after several frank discussions with Mr. Rudd.
â€œI had to make a judgment about what is in the best interests of the nation,â€ she told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday. â€œI came to that judgment with a heavy heart in many ways.â€
She acknowledged that it had been an emotional day for Mr. Rudd, and pledged to find a place for him in her government. He has also vowed to support her in the next election.
The child of working-class parents who were raised in poverty, Ms. Gillard moved to Australia from her native Wales when she was 4 years old. As a baby, she contracted a lung infection that kept her in an oxygen tent for two weeks. Her parents decided to move to Australia when a doctor said she would be unable to lead a normal life and attend school unless she moved to a warmer climate.
Ms. Gillard grew up in a suburb of Adelaide, and later studied arts and law at Adelaide University. There, she became a leading figure in university politics and aligned herself with left-leaning causes. She later became one of the first female partners at the law firm Slater & Gordon, where she cut her teeth in industrial law.
After three failed attempts to run as a Labor Party candidate, Ms. Gillard was finally elected to represent the Melbourne seat of Lalor in 1998, the same year that Mr. Rudd entered national politics. She cites education and workersâ€™ rights as her keystone issues.
â€œOne of the real reasons I got involved in politics at all is the sense of unfairness and lost opportunity, particularly for kids,â€ Ms. Guillard told Australian Broadcasting Corp. in a 2006 interview. â€œIt does make me burn with anger that someone like my father didnâ€™t get the opportunities he should have had.â€
Ms. Gillard worked closely with Mr. Rudd throughout much of her early parliamentary career, which was spent in opposition. Mr. Rudd appointed her as his deputy when he was selected as party leader in 2006, and then made her deputy prime minister after his landslide election the following year.
As deputy prime minister, Ms. Gillard assumed control of the education, employment and workplace relations ministries, earning her the nickname â€œMinister for Everything.â€ There, she was instrumental in leading the governmentâ€™s â€œEducation Revolutionâ€ â€” a program that included giving a laptop to every high school student in Australia â€” and unwinding labor laws that had been implemented by the previous conservative government that reduced the power of unions in setting wages and settling disputes.
Throughout Mr. Ruddâ€™s tenure, Ms. Gillard remained one of his closest ministers. As such, she claimed her â€œfair shareâ€ of responsibility Thursday for his policy successes and failures, including a school infrastructure program that has been plagued by allegations of waste.
Unmarried with no children, Ms. Gillardâ€™s personal life has attracted significant attention. In her first year as deputy leader, one outspoken conservative senator, Bill Heffernan, said she could not understand the needs of Australian families and was unfit to govern because she was â€œdeliberately barren.â€ He later apologized for the remark.
â€œThereâ€™s something in me thatâ€™s focused and single-minded,â€ Ms. Gillard said of her decision not to marry and have children. â€œIâ€™m kind of full of admiration for women who can mix it together â€” working and having kids â€” but Iâ€™m not sure I could have.â€
She lives with her partner, Tim Mathieson, a hairdresser she met in a Melbourne salon just as her career was entering overdrive in 2006.
Ms. Gillardâ€™s achievement in becoming the first woman to serve as Australiaâ€™s prime minister has been largely overshadowed by the stunning and widely unexpected ouster of Mr. Rudd.
It was widely assumed that she would eventually replace Mr. Rudd, provided he could win the next election. But the coupâ€™s timing â€” and Mr. Ruddâ€™s deeply emotional response â€” took some of the shine off the day for some women voters and fellow lawmakers.
Others were jubilant.
â€œWe shouldnâ€™t underestimate the value of symbolism,â€ Natasha Stott Despoja, a former senator, wrote in an editorial on the Business Spectator Web site. â€œFor many women, especially younger ones, she shows that access to the highest positions of power is possible.â€