Comments on: Australia’s First Female Prime Minister

By: tiny danza

tiny danza — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 03:15:24 +0000

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 …

By: Erin

Erin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 03:10:41 +0000

It’s fun, reading this, and realising how many Aussies read Harpyness! Here I was thinking I was one of few!

By: Mackey

Mackey — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:01:35 +0000

@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.

By: NotHerRealName

NotHerRealName — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:20:50 +0000

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!”

By: Mackey

Mackey — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:07:17 +0000

@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.

By: SkipToMyLou

SkipToMyLou — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:55:41 +0000

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

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:54:50 +0000

@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.

By: SkipToMyLou

SkipToMyLou — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:02:25 +0000

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.

By: PhDork

PhDork — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:51:09 +0000

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.

By: mischiefmanager

mischiefmanager — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:40:53 +0000

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?