Australia has a new PM.

Pride Fighter

Kevin Rudd has resigned in the face of poor poll ratings. He has been replaced by Australia's first woman PM Julia Gillard. There was a heave against him so Rudd decided to step down http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10393918.stm

This is not a good thing IMO. Leaves the door open to the Liberals to get back in at the upcoming general election. I always thought Rudd tried to do the right thing, and he did end a long spell of Liberal dominated government in Australia.

sceptre

And your opinion on this is...? (see forum charter requirement)

imme

very odd report in the Irish Times re this, it seems to be all over the place, according to some of the report Rudd is still going to go forward to a ballot to decide the leadership of Labor. It seems to be mixing up the timeline in the report.

“I was elected to do a job . . . I intend to continue doing that job. I was elected by the people of Australia to do a job. I was not elected by the factional leaders of the Labor Party.”
Mr Rudd said he had lost the support of some party members in recent weeks. “It has become apparent to me in the course of the last period of time . . . that a number of factional leaders in the Labor Party no longer support my leadership. That is why it is imperative this matter be resolved.
“I believe I am quite capable of winning this ballot tomorrow. It’s far better for these things are done quickly [sic] rather than being strung out over a period of time.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0624/1224273189973.html


The Sydney Morning Herald has the full story with typical Aussie phrases. http://www.smh.com.au/national/gillard--to-become-australias-first-female-prime-minister-as-tearful-rudd-stands-aside-20100624-yzvw.html?autostart=1

The report says that she`ll decide when to go for the election.

Mahatma coat

This is IMO the problem with Party Politics and FACTIONS.

Rudd was the first one in a while to completley ignore the unelected caucas and pick his own Cabinet.

these Shadowy figures dont like that sort of thing, next thing you know he'd be tryin to do things for the Greater good of the people as opposed to the Good of the Party.

his Career as PM has been one long string of being shot down by his own party in backroom deals.

Now I have no love for the man I thought he was a useless soundbytemerchant as evident from his 'policies' but leaving office now his legacy is NOTHING, 3 Years and managed not only to not achieve anything usefull he managed to undo a lot of the good that had been done by the previous Liberal government, the NT Intervention, the Pacific Solution Centrelink Reforms, Health Reforms, Education..... all set backwards

But the thing that pissed me off mpst about his term;
the Whoppin Budget SURPLUS he was handed at the start of his term, Australia was one of only a few nations with a budget Surplus when the GFC 'occured' what did Kruddy do? he decided to use it to stimulate the Chinese Economy a bit by buying loads of rather dodgy roof insulation and roundin up a bunch of the lowest of the low on the labourin totem to stuff up fitting in your house so spectacularly that 70% of the jobs have to be reinspected and People have died in House fires started by the stuff.


So whilst I am not sad to see him go I am annoyed about the way its being done.

Anyway there'll be a General election soon enough and then we can get the Nationals up to a better level of representation.

Barnaby Joyce for PM .o/

jank

Dont really know what to make of this. Seems the press were after him for a while and Julie being the person she is took him down. The mining tax was the issue put him over the edge. Pity really, his heart was in the right place but he seems to have a image problem getting things done.

maynooth_rules

And yet Biffo hangs on with lower poll ratings than a Turnip running the country would have.

andrewhpf

It was definitely his image that was the main problem. You have to wonder, where was the Kevin Rudd we saw today in his farewell speech in the two and half years of term?

Yes it's obvious his heart was in the right place, but people with good intentions have no place in politics...:D

The silly thing is, the woman replacing him at the helm was one of his most trusted advisers, and played a very important part in most of the policy decisions Rudd has been criticized for. It'll be very interesting what she comes up with when challenged with this.

Het-Field

Pride Fighter wrote: »

Kevin Rudd has resigned in the face of poor poll ratings. He has been replaced by Australia's first woman PM Julia Gillard. There was a heave against him so Rudd decided to step down http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10393918.stm

This is not a good thing IMO. Leaves the door open to the Liberals to get back in at the upcoming general election. I always thought Rudd tried to do the right thing, and he did end a long spell of Liberal dominated government in Australia.

The Liberals should never have been ousted in the first place. John Howard should be held up on a pedestal as Australia's economy managed to withstand the full force of the International Downturn

RATM

Het-Field wrote: »

The Liberals should never have been ousted in the first place. John Howard should be held up on a pedestal as Australia's economy managed to withstand the full force of the International Downturn

Howard, just like Blair, has Iraqi blood all over his hands so I wouldn't be holding him up on any pedestals anytime soon.
And Australia is avoiding the financial crisis not because of Howards policies. Its because theyve got control of some of the regions largest mines in gold, copper, silver, coal & zinc right when we are in the middle of a commodities boom (gold hit record levels only yesterday). Australian mining companies have expanded far into Asia and have hundreds of operations all over Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.
China can't get this gear out of Australian soil quickly enough and that is why Australia is weathering the storm- because of their abundant natural resources during a resource boom.

Het-Field

RATM wrote: »

Howard, just like Blair, has Iraqi blood all over his hands so I wouldn't be holding him up on any pedestals anytime soon.
And Australia is avoiding the financial crisis not because of Howards policies. Its because theyve got control of some of the regions largest mines in gold, copper, silver, coal & zinc right when we are in the middle of a commodities boom (gold hit record levels only yesterday). Australian mining companies have expanded far into Asia and have hundreds of operations all over Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.
China can't get this gear out of Australian soil quickly enough and that is why Australia is weathering the storm- because of their abundant natural resources during a resource boom.

Many would be inclined to agree that expansion was a key plank of Howard's premiership. It was the use of these resources rather then the simple presence of them. Fiscally conservative countries have weathered the bust. Look at Canada, which is not up to it's neck thanks to a fiscally conservative model. On the otherhand high spend model countries are paying the price.

The War in Iraq is irrelevant in this context.

Zambia

A lot of what Mahatma said was true. He was a string of failures in the most case. Peter Garrett should have been sacked for the fiasco that was the insulation scheme we are left with thousands of death trap houses some dead poorly trained tradies to boot. Not too mention a whole industry created by this scheme left out in the cold when it stopped.

ETS a scheme being heralded by him as being the most important ever ...was shelved ??

That denmark conference thing ,,,,nothing

Controling the border consistant failure regardless of whats right or wrong if you are seen weak in this regard you may as well hand the reins back to the liberals. He always appeared weak in this issue.

His replacement seems competent and I did like her but she turned on him like a mantis. I mean only a few weeks agi she was quoted as saying there was more chance of her playing full forward for the dogs than being PM.

I await her lining up beside acker and Barry hall this weekend....

If only the liberals had some good front men, abbott does not fill me with hope.

Madd Finn

You gotta hand it to these Aussies. They know how to organise a leadership coup.

Maybe Richard Bruton should take a trip down there to see how it's done.

bnt

Apologies for the necrothreadery, but the title is true again today: Gillard is out and Rudd is back in, after a leadership ballot. BBC Report:

The change comes ahead of a general election due in September, which polls suggest Labor is set to lose.

After the vote, Ms Gillard confirmed she would stand by a pledge to resign from politics following a loss in the leadership challenge.

"I will not recontest the federal electorate... at the forthcoming election," she said.

Ms Gillard added: "What I am absolutely confident of is it will be easier for the next woman and the woman after that and the woman after that, and I'm proud of that."

TheFOB

bnt wrote: »

Apologies for the necrothreadery, but the title is true again today: Gillard is out and Rudd is back in, after a leadership ballot. BBC Report:

Good riddance her accent is puke inducing.

IvySlayer

lol at all the feminists groups on twitter saying she was booted cos she was a woman...

oscarBravo

IvySlayer wrote: »

lol at all the feminists groups on twitter saying she was booted cos she was a woman...

To be fair, the level of vitriol that has been directed at her for the past few years, for no reason other than being a woman in what's perceived as rightfully a man's job, has been utterly sickening.

Zambia

oscarBravo wrote: »

To be fair, the level of vitriol that has been directed at her for the past few years, for no reason other than being a woman in what's perceived as rightfully a man's job, has been utterly sickening.

Do you have an example ?

oscarBravo

Zambia wrote: »

Do you have an example ?

http://annesummers.com.au/speeches/her-rights-at-work-r-rated/ (nsfw)

http://annesummers.com.au/speeches/her-rights-at-work-vanilla/ (a sanitised version of the above)

steddyeddy

oscarBravo wrote: »

To be fair, the level of vitriol that has been directed at her for the past few years, for no reason other than being a woman in what's perceived as rightfully a man's job, has been utterly sickening.

This. When I seen some of the remarks aimed at her during the week I was briefly happy that our own set of politicians are not as regressive as the Aussie's.

bnt

There's a fun piece in The Guardian that describes some of the previous "episodes" in the adult theatre that is Australian politics. Sample:

PAUL KEATING V PRETTY MUCH EVERYBODY:
...
The best and worst of Keating was, of course, saved for the opposition. Peter Costello was "all tip and no iceberg", Andrew Peacock an "intellectual rust-bucket", and Wilson “Iron Bar” Tuckey a "stupid, foul-mouthed grub". He famously called his 1993 opponent John Hewson, "a feral abacus" with a performance "like being flogged with warm lettuce", and in saying "I want to do you slowly", delivered a taunt that still echoes in the dark corridors of the Australian political imagination. Keating may have lost the election to Howard in 1996 but one suspects that Keating's special brand of spoken bastardry will endure beyond any memory of Howard's words. What, after all, do a majority of votes matter, when your opponent has described you to history as a "mangy maggot", "the old desiccated coconut", "araldited to the seat" and a "dead carcass, swinging in the breeze"?