It’s 8:42 PM on June 23 as I write this, but if I were in Canberra, it would be 10:42 AM on June 24, the day Australia gained its first female prime minister, Julia Gillard. A member of the Labor Party, Welsh-born Gillard is 48 years old and previously served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion.
Reuters noted that “Government lawmakers believe Gillard has a better chance than [outgoing P.M. Kevin] Rudd of winning back voters because she is a warmer personality who can sell policies more effectively.”
Aussie readers, we’d love to know what you think!
Mackey, where you at?
I am a long time Australian reader coming out of the woodwork to comment on this!
I was just watching the news and the program’s main presenter who is a woman, was discussing the new Prime Minister (a woman) with a political correspondent (also a woman). They then crossed to a journalist in Canberra, who was also a woman! It was so heartening for me to see how integral and present women are in this important event. It fills me with joy to think of all the kids in primary schools around the country listening and watching a woman in charge.
Today is a good day (even if it has been a long time coming), regardless of whether you support Ms Gillard’s politics or not (though I do.)
Thanks for delurking for the occasion, phryne! I’m really heartened by your comment.
Does anyone else wonder if the US system of direct election is the reason it lags behind the other English-speaking nations when it comes to female heads of state? Does a parliamentary system make it easier for women to rise to the top?
LONG time reader, feeling compelled to comment for the first time.
I blubbered. Even though I intellectually knew we could have a female PM, hearing those words affected me more than I could have imagined. An extraordinary day.
I’ve been lurking around here for a while now, but thought it a good time to comment.
For me, there’s a definite sense of pride in our new leader. Sure, it won’t be easy, but it is about time this happened.
It is indeed a good day for this country.
I’m going to borrow the words of Josephine Tovey on the Sydney Morning Herald website, because I think she does a good job of conveying just what it means for this country.
“…Having a woman running the country will continue to challenge our collective notions of what it means to be Australian, to be a leader, to be a woman.
This country, where our concepts of identity, heroism and even friendship have for so long been wrapped up in male stereotypes and male pursuits, is now being led by a woman who has eschewed marriage and children, and climbed a steady and determined path to the top of a party and a parliament traditionally dominated by blokes.”
(The full article can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/2e5ulqz )
I am so thrilled that Australia finally! has a female PM. Having lived as an expat in the US for the last six years, I really am not sure of the nuances of Gillard’s politics, or the way the spill went down. I keep up as much as possible with Australian newspapers online and emails from home, but there’s nothing like the word on the street to really fill you in about attitudes and those details that don’t sell web traffic.
That said, I have really high expectations for Gillard. I have to believe that she’s a feminist, and that her experience as a woman will lead her to make nuanced and empathetic decisions. I know it might seem unfair, and I know women can be as thoroughly shit as men *coughpalincough* at nuance and empathy but I really think Gillard’s got something. I expect her to make needed and difficult changes in family, environmental, labour, and communications policy.
As to the parlimentary system- yes I do believe that not having to run the gauntlet of a primary season makes a difference. Having a system that operates very much more on party unity- not to mention factional unity- means that women get backing and it sticks. The members are voting often more for the faction than the individual, which takes some of the heat off the candidate’s personal attributes. I actually think this was what undid Kevin Rudd. People seemed to like him as a person, but he had no factional support.
While I’m not entirely convinced from a political point of view that Gillard as PM is a step forward (or that they went about it the right way), I am incredibly appreciative of what this means from a feminist point of view. I felt Australia would lag behind other developed nations in terms of female leadership for a lot longer – and am very happy to have been proved wrong!
Another reason I’m smugly happy that Gillard got in, is that a few years ago she was described by an opposition senator as being unfit to be PM due to being “deliberately barren”. She has no kids. It did provoke outrage at the time, but even the fact that it could be said made me a bit cynical about the future of female leadership in Aus.
Hm. Shorter version: go Julia!
Another Aussie reader here. I think it IS a step forward for Labor, Julia is definitely warmer and also more go-getting. I like Rudd but his general perception is of a bit of a back room bureaucrat, and a hand-sitter. Julia has a lot going for her, and I kind of like the way she’s slipped in to power.
I’ve already unfriended two people on facebook, though, for joining ‘get Julia out of power and into the kitchen!’. And considered it for a few who said they ‘won’t vote for her’ since… they can’t. Unless they are in her electorate. A very sensible system, I say.
It’ll be a female governer general swearing in a female PM, too.
Phryne.f… fisher?
I’m pleased she has no strong religious affliation, unlike the last PM and the pinhead leader of the opposition *shudder*.
(Love the Phryne Fisher reference…)
sorry for the delay in getting back to you all in the nest.. My tv has been on and I’ve been watching watching watching..
Question time at the moment, and the Opposition Leader is looking a lil uncomfortable..
Though it was great seeing the Governer General (a women) swearing in Gillard (a woman) to the Prime Ministership…
Btw, knew you all would be on top of this – big shout outs to Becky!
I’ll try to leave out my personal politics whilst discussing Gillard, and give a balanced view.
Gillard will be better at selling the Govt policies. Already the major stoush going on between the Govt and the Mining Industry on a resource tax has lessened. Gillard has said that she will withdraw the Govt publicity. One of the major mining companies has indicated it will withdraw advertising against this tax. And I think over the next few weeks that a deal between the Mining Industry and the Govt will be reached.
Gillard does consultation well, a good example of this was the changes to the industrial/workplace relations policy – which in the end, the unions and the business lobbies both had some of their policies adopted, but not everything. The number of meetings that were had to draft up this policy was phenomenal, yet between the different agendas of the business lobbies, and the union movement, she did a pretty good job. (Personal declaration – I don’t like the new legislation and find aspects of too much like the old industrial relations legislation “WorkChoices”, but in terms of process and not acceding everything to one interest group, Gillard did a good job.)
Gillard has come under fire in relation to one policy area that came directly under her Ministerial responsibilities – Building the Education Revolution. It was a building fund for primary and secondary schools to build new buildings and investment, and in part govt stimulus funding to ward off a recession in Australia. There has been found to be some “rorting” of the monies, and public school spending has been found to not get as bigger bang for the buck compared to private schools. She was also the architect of a scheme called “Medicare Gold” which was a flop and not well through through.
On the whole, it’s still wait and see about how she goes. But I do think that this is a momentous occassion – now I look forward to Australia having its first Indigenous Prime Minister.
As an aside, from the 1st Jan 2011, Australia will have paid parental leave of 18 weeks at the minimum wage rate! Then it will be the USA as the only OECD country without a universal paid parental leave scheme.
Another Australian de-lurking.
I, too, blubbed a bit this morning. Especially when I told my 2 daughters that we now had a female PM. (The 3 year old couldn’t care less now but hopefully by the time she is 13, this will be a commonplace event!)
Now to get a bit Australian-centric on the blog, I heard Bob Hawke (ex-PM from the 80′s and elder statesmen of the Australian Labor Party) say something that was interesting and potentially depressing. If the ALP lose the next election they will have burnt through 2 very good leaders for nothing – presuming Kevin (the outgoing PM) will now step down and Julia will do the same if the ALP loses.
Although god help us if the ALP loses because Prime Minister Tony Abbott is a thought not even worth thinking…… Take the Republican Party and give it an Aussie accent, stick it in some budgie smugglers (speedo swimming costume) and there you go.
I really like Julia Gillard but I hope she doesn’t go the way of Kim Campbell in Canada. (For the non-Canadians, Kim was elected as the party leader of the Conservative Party in 1993, and therefore PM of Canada. The Conservatives were then COMPLETELY routed at the next general election; they went from a majority to 2 seats in federal Parliament, and she was never heard from again. She lost her seat and served for 132 days).
Julia seems to have a very sensible head on her shoulders and is from the Left so fingers crossed she will be a positive influence on the country.
@ Kate + Angie: Yep, big Kerry Greenwood fan
Non-Australian harpies – you should check this author out!
The imagery of our Governor-General Quentin Bryce swearing in Julia Gillard is very powerful. Link below.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/24/2936125.htm
I also like that now there will be so many references to Ms Gillard in the media, so hopefully my friends will stop asking whether ‘Ms’ is just used for divorced women!! Seriously, what did their mothers teach them??
This is very exciting news! And on a tangential note, I’m very intrigued by the idea of a Minister of Social Inclusion. That sounds so welcoming and also kind of like being on the Party Planning Committee.
So Ms Gilliard is unmarried and childless…does that mean she’s a…a…oh, I can’t bear to say it. *snerk*
BeckyS, you have a very good point. When the old boys’ club that is the elected legislature of a country is more aware of gender balance than the electorate, that’s a pretty sad situation.
In general, it seems to me that the gender of the elected official is less important than that person’s policies. The recent nominations in South Carolina, California and wherever the other one was of right-wing women is not good news for us. I’ll take a progressive male over a retrograte female any time.
And what the hell was with Sotomayor the other day writing the majority opinion on the outrageously wrongly decided crack sentencing case?
Helllloooo, Australia! So cool to hear from all of you. I was going to ask you a whole bunch of stupid/basic/ignorant USAmerican questions, but I decided to do a little reading around and found this Q&A also at Reuters, which might be of interest to others, too.
MM: Not only is Ms Gillard unmarried and childless, she has a male partner who’s a – wait for it- a HAIRDRESSER! And she’s not religious and she’s foreign-born. Could you fucking IMAGINE how this would go down in the United States!?
I’m not unnecessarily snarking on the US (really, I chose to live here, I must like it!), I’m just feeling good about Australia right now.
@SkipToMyLou: Could you fucking IMAGINE how this would go down in the United States!?
She wouldn’t make it out of the primaries. I really think that’s where the parliamentary system helps female candidates. All she needs is strong backing from her local constituency to keep her in office and then she can move up through the party and become leader that way. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi never would have become the most powerful woman in the US if the role of Speaker of the House was determined by general election. But all she had to do was rise through her party when the party held the majority.
Becky, yes, I know that. And I’m very grateful for the parliamentary system for that exact reason (I think I pretty much said that in my first comment!).
I also think that whingy comments- which I’ve seen a ton of on Facebook- that “this wasn’t the way it should have happened”/”I voted for Rudd not Gillard” /”I support a woman prime Minister, but not like this” are totally misplaced. This was a completely foreseeable event. We have a party system . You vote for the party, not an individual, and the party gets to choose its leader. Unless you live in Altona, you wouldn’t have gotten to vote for her anyway
@SkipToMyLou, that sort of sentiment happens no matter whose in power here.
@Becky and Skip – the worrying thing is, that when the ALP (Australian Labor Party of which Gillard is now leader) go to a female leader, it’s usually because there’s fears that they’ll lose government and lose a massive number of seats in the election. But if they put up a female leader, she’ll help the party not lose as many seats compared to retaining the male leader – eg Carmen Lawrence (Western Australia), Joan Kirner (Victoria), Kristina Keneally (New South Wales).
Still, I’m having a field day with the analyses.. If any of the harpies have any questions about Australian politics, feel free to ask – I’m happy to share.
Oh! I feel bad for not checking Harpyness on Thursday now! I’m also coming out of the woodwork to comment. Julia Gillard is a very interesting, intelligent, astute politician. I think Australia lost all belief after Rudd (the former PM) back-flipped on the Carbon Trading/ETS scheme. It was a key election issue in 2007. Hopefully Gillard will be able to turn the Labor party around by improving their stance on climate change.
Also, as one of my friends text me as the leadership spill happened, Gillard is “sassy power-bitchy – in the best possible way!”
@Not – the whole emissions trading scheme (ETS) thing was not a good look for Rudd. Unfortunately Gillard is not likely to address the issue of a carbon tax (in any form) going to the election, and is not likely to change the Labor Party’s support for a different approach to climate change.
The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS – carbon trading scheme developed by Rudd) was strongly argued against by Gillard. However when Malcolm Turnbull (the former opposition leader of the Liberal Party and supporter of an ETS) was rolled by Tony Abbot (current opposition leader, and alternative Prime Minister, and a non-supporter of ETS) there was no way the ETS was going to get through the Senate.
It’s fun, reading this, and realising how many Aussies read Harpyness! Here I was thinking I was one of few!
Late here (I was at Glastonbury when it all went down, and though the politics behind it make me shudder – I am farklempt)
Thanks, Becky, for reporting on our far corner of the world – and ahoy there other Aussie readers! Rolf Harris made me cry. And I once got very trashed (neat whiskeys) with Bob Hawke …