Like most Australians, I was astonished to hear on the radio yesterday morning that Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard was planning to challenge the leadership of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Although Mr Rudd's stance on the Mining Super Tax, his backdown on the Emissions Trading Scheme, and his apparent laxity regarding asylum seekers were making him unpopular in the polls, he was, after all, the man who kept Australia out of recession during the global financial crisis of the past three years, making us unique amongst developed nations.
Despite my surprise, I was initially excited when I heard that we had our first female Prime Minister - and a red-headed woman to boot.
However, later in the day when I had the opportunity to see the news on television, I began to have some serious misgivings.
In spite of his faults, (it appears that Mr Rudd was a micromanager, and this 'centralised leadership style' alienated him from both business leaders and his Party) Mr Rudd was our elected leader. Prime Minister Gillard's coup seems an awful lot like bullying. And Australians don't like a bully.
While I am no particular fan of Opposition leader Tony Abbott, I am inclined to agree with him that ''a midnight knock on the door followed by an assassination is no way to treat a prime minister.''
What do you think about Australia's new Prime Minister?
Although Mr Rudd's stance on the Mining Super Tax, his backdown on the Emissions Trading Scheme, and his apparent laxity regarding asylum seekers were making him unpopular in the polls, he was, after all, the man who kept Australia out of recession during the global financial crisis of the past three years, making us unique amongst developed nations.
Despite my surprise, I was initially excited when I heard that we had our first female Prime Minister - and a red-headed woman to boot.
However, later in the day when I had the opportunity to see the news on television, I began to have some serious misgivings.
In spite of his faults, (it appears that Mr Rudd was a micromanager, and this 'centralised leadership style' alienated him from both business leaders and his Party) Mr Rudd was our elected leader. Prime Minister Gillard's coup seems an awful lot like bullying. And Australians don't like a bully.
While I am no particular fan of Opposition leader Tony Abbott, I am inclined to agree with him that ''a midnight knock on the door followed by an assassination is no way to treat a prime minister.''
What do you think about Australia's new Prime Minister?
7 comments:
Hoooooboy! This is a tough one.
I'm no fan of Tony Abbott, and I'm a swinging voter by habit. I've voted for all major parties at one point or another - including the Democrats!
But I don't see this as something Gillard did. I see it as something Rudd brought upon himself.
If you don't listen to people, treat people badly, behave rudely and poorly, and perform your job shockingly (look at his performance in the polls), then no matter who you are, you're going to go down.
The Labor party were facing the very real possibility of being kicked out of office after just one term. This has only happened once before - if I remember my politics degree reading right. So it's pretty much unheard of. Which tells you that Rudd has made some serious miscalculations.
I don't like the way Rudd was deposed, but I really think that the Labor party had no choice. The polls suggested things were looking too dicey to risk keeping him.
And politics has NEVER been a game of treating people nicely or fairly in Australia. It's a game of bickering, in-fighting, factionism and back-stabbing. So Rudd's removal is really no surprise, in behavioural terms.
Abbott's a misogynist, and his policies on asylum seekers are racist. I don't like misogynists or racists, as a general rule. So you can see what I think of him. The Liberal party would need to attract both a more capable and a more balanced leader to get my vote, if I were voting in the upcoming election.
I'm no longer living in Australia, but as an Aussie citizen I'd still say, let Gillard have a fair go first.
See what she says. See how she operates. See if she's just going to make the same mistakes, make brand new ones of her own, or actually make some real, positive change for the country.
In other words, see how the horse runs before we shoot it.
Makes sense to me.
I agree entirely with your sentiments. I'm excited that we have a female Prime Minister but Julia just does not excite me!
Cheers - Joolz
My word verification: pastuns
Kevin Rudd is one of our pastuns (past ones)!
Could not agree more. Whether you like him or not, he was the People's vote & I feel duped that that counts for nothing it seems.
Julia does not excite me at all & I am feeling very jaded about our politicians as we speak.
Very unAustralian.
Niki
I'm not convinced that Rudd was doing a great job. However, that should have been sorted out at the next election.
I feel that my democratic rights have been impinged.
A few elite politicians shouldnt be able to make massive decisions about our country's leadership.
That's what is so worrying about this.
For what it's worth..I agree with Kella B.Im just really ticked off that a select few have forced a new Prime Minister upon us .
I didnt vote for Kevin Rudd,and didnt like him or the Labor Party policies.But that, I feel, is beside the point!
We have a right to decide!
A few years ago, my hubby wrote a letter to Julia Gillard and many other politicians about a bill that was being debated.
Julia wrote back to my hubby and from the response we got, I suspected she hadn't even read his letter. Her response didn't answer any of our questions and was probably just a standard letter she had written to send to everyone that wrote to her about the bill.
All the other responses from the other politicians showed that they were answering Steve's letter and addressed points that he had put forward.
Since that day, Julia Gillard has been on my list of politicians that I don't like.
I didn't like Abbott's suggestion for Paid Parental Leave but most of the time that I listen to him speak, I agree with a lot of what he says.
I really hope Julia isn't voted in by the people.
I think she is at least as competent as Kevin. However,I think Kevin was unfairly treated and I think Julia was very reluctant to roll him -- the impetus came from the back-room boys, who were getting jumpy about the polls (unreasonably, IMO; his polls were always going to come out of the stratosphere some time). The main problem is that she's now beholden to them, but the same is true of Tony Abbott.
OTOH to say we voted for Kevin is to misunderstand our system. Only the electors of Griffith voted for Kevin, and only the electors of Lalor vote for Julia.
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