So Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was up and booted out of office by his deputy Julia Gillard on Tuesday night, which means we have our first female Prime Minister. But that in no way implies it's time for hearty celebration on the feminist front. Oh no. Because the whole thing took place quite literally overnight.
Let me elaborate: Kevid Rudd was the Prime Minister we elected in late 2007. He had his whole catchy Kevin '07 advertising campaign which I believe was the critical element in his ultimate success. Never underestimate the power of advertising. Anyway, people were sick of the previous Prime Minister (John Howard) and the Liberal party of which he was party, so Kevin (from the opposing Labor party) won the election. And he was to say the least, the darling of the nation for a good couple of months.
Now Kevin Rudd did some good things while he was in power. He overturned the previous Prime Minister's WorkChoices program (which was extremely unpopular) and formally apologised to the Stolen Generation (no time to explain, Google it). But after that he didn't seem to do much at all. And after that, he started to do some things the people didn't exactly approve of. His popularity plummeted and the Labor party knew they wouldn't win another election with him in charge. So they approached his deputy on Tuesday night to see whether she was interested in taking over his position. And why wouldn't she be?
But here comes the interesting part. She not only admitted she was interested, but she openly challenged the Prime Minister for his position and helped to organise a cabinet vote to overthrow him. The party called a caucus meeting first thing Wednesday morning so voting could take place. She won the vote, was sworn in as the new Prime Minister, and Kevin Rudd was hung out to dry. As Rudd gave his final address as Prime Minister before handing the reins to Julia Gillard, many of the journalists were crying. They, like many other Australians, couldn't believe what had just happened. And all in less than 24 hours.
I have to say, before this sudden change in leadership, I was quite supportive of Julia Gillard (probably because one of her major portfolios as Deputy Prime Minister was Education). She has some questionable ideas about the education system ie. nationwide standardized testing and the transparency of testing results, but she also has some good ones ie. national curriculum. So in less suspect circumstances, I would have gladly voted for her as preferred Prime Minister. But all this gallivanting around behind each others backs has put a reasonable dent in my perception of her character. I understand politics is a tough gig, what with all the name calling and character assassination and bullying tactics, but what she did to Kevin Rudd was, in short, a stab in the back.
A few days before this all took place, I watched a documentary about Julia Gillard's rise to Deputy Prime Minister. I knew she would be THE Prime Minister at some point, I just didn't realise it would happen within the space of a week. I'm sure many people thought the same thing, but that she would do so by electoral votes rather than underhanded actions.
It will be interesting to see how Labor fares at the next election. Australians don't like tall poppies.
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