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Politics and activism

Julia Gillard, Prime Minister

I for one would like to welcome our new red-headed overlord.

One of the things about the Westminster system is that if the ruling party loses confidence in the leader, they can replace him. And for those of you watching from overseas, that’s what happened this morning: Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister since the 2007 election, got the arse.

Compared to the Hawke/Keating coup of 1991, the information revolution means that this time it was possible to track this what was happening in near real time. The place to be was on Twitter — in part for the amusing comments, but if you follow the right people — in this case the senior political journalists, it’s by far the quickest way to find out the latest developments.

In this case, the (unconfirmed at the time, of course) news of what had happened in this morning’s caucus vote came from The Australian’s Samantha Maiden, a good few minutes before it was officially announced:

Labor Mp text: it’s Julia no ballot #spill

(I’d love to tell you precisely what time that was compared to the announcement, but bloody Twitter won’t tell me that. Judging from an email I sent straight afterwards, the Tweet was at about 9:27.

Edit: Tweetdeck does tell me the exact times. The announcement was around 9:35.)

Congratulations, Prime Minister Gillard. Now, let’s see you act on the things people care about, and the reasons people voted Labor in 2007 — as well as the things we most definitely didn’t vote for.

In the former category, action on Climate Change is the biggie that Rudd dropped the ball on — and something Gillard specifically mentioned in her speech. In the latter, it’s time to accept that Stephen Conroy’s Net filter plan is something that nobody voted for, admit it’s a flawed idea, and to scrap it.

Australian Age CNN BBC

Update 6:30pm Spotted this advert for Jetstar in MX on the way home:

Ha ha Jetstar ad in MX #spill on Twitpic

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

14 replies on “Julia Gillard, Prime Minister”

Rudd seemed to lose his way after the opposition torpedoed the CPRS and the insulation project blew up in his face. When the RSTP also became a millstone he was a dead man walking. Gillard has a very short time to demonstrate she has a vision and can cut through the crap to deliver on it, otherwise we’ll get Mr Rabbit and the little he stands for…

After seeing the Royal assent being given I was a little choked up, I have nothing against Kevin, at no time did I believe any of his desisions were not intended to be in the national interest and I hope he continues to contribute. Julia will be an excellent PM.
It seems there are 4 forces who shape Australian politics, policical parties, business, unions and the media, all have played a part in the current situation, unfortunatly the voters don’t count for much and that’s there own fault for being so easily led, Kev should have been given credit for where it was due and contested the next election.

Even in NSW where the ALP is on the nose the alternatives are scary with the Libs dealing with christian extremists in their own party, the national Libs need to offer an improvement over the ALP which will be difficult with labour straddeling the centre like British labour, there really is not much difference except the quality of the pollies and i think labour still has the edge there.

“I for one would like to welcome our new red-headed overlord.”

Daniel Bowen, the Kent Brockman of the blogging world. :)

My guess is a snap election in the honeymoon period, assuming she gets one which is usually the case. Antony Green sums it up fairly well, (this link was before the leadership spill). August or early October most likely. November out due to Victorian election, NSW election March next year and with Labor running very badly there they would be unlikely to run around that …

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/06/possible-federal-election-date.html

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/06/changing-heads-of-government.html

I find it remarkable that a pointy-nosed red-haired woman has also deposed the prime minister this week – in Finland.

There’s a chance we could get gay marriage something overwelmingly supported by the Australian public but opposed by Rudd due to his religious beliefs funny is my religious beliefs lead me to support it !

The ghost of Highriser appears from provincial Japan with a dodgy keyboard where betweeb the AU AbC 900 news and absenting for b/fast, upon returning less than half an hour later, it was all over red rover. I will return to Oz with a girl being the bossman. Still, not as bad as NSW; they are swamped by girls.

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