(metaphorically speaking) :(

 

Kevin Rudd ousts Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard

 

Kevin Rudd has ousted Prime Minister Julia Gillard as leader of Australia's Labor Party.

 

He won 57 votes in a leadership ballot called by Ms Gillard, who received 45 votes.

 

The change comes ahead of an election called for 14 September, which polls suggest Labor is set to lose.

 

Mr Rudd is more popular with voters than Ms Gillard, and many believe Labor will perform better in the election under him.

 

The vote took place three years after Ms Gillard ousted Mr Rudd as prime minister in 2010.

 

Ms Gillard had said ahead of the vote she would step down from politics if she lost the ballot.

 

The vote followed months of speculation over the party's leadership and came after a day of drama that saw Mr Rudd's supporters push for a vote.

 

Limiting losses?

Shortly before the vote, a key power-broker, Bill Shorten, switched his support to Mr Rudd saying Labor stood a better chance in the polls with him.

 

 

Ms Gillard herself came to power after a leadership challenge

The BBC's Nick Bryant in Sydney says the Labor party wants to hold power and the best way they see of doing that is to restore Kevin Rudd to leadership.

 

Many people do not think he will win the election but he may mitigate the losses and shorten the time Labor could spend in opposition if the party loses, our correspondent says.

 

A poll published earlier this month suggested that three cabinet ministers would lose their seats under Ms Gillard, but would retain their seats if Mr Rudd was leading the party.

 

The vote makes Mr Rudd the leader of the Labor Party, but not prime minister.

 

Ms Gillard must write to Governor General Quentin Bryce stating that she is resigning as prime minister before Mr Rudd can be sworn in.

 

A shake-up in the cabinet is expected following the leadership change.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23061391

 

I imagine Silas is DELIGHTED but even though old Jools was electoral strychnine I shall MISS her ways, though it's all a bit what goes around comes around (albeit with three attempts at it coming around from oily old Rudd). I reckon Rudd'll manage to beat that GHASTLY old leather catalogue Abbott (which was QUITE the worry with R Julez in power) but won't last much longer after the election, given he makes Gordon Brown look WELL ADJUSTED when it comes to internal politics.

Poor Jools. Anybody who can stand up for fifteen minutes and rip Abbot a new one gets brownie points from me. I think the knitted kangaroo was the final nail in the coffin though.

 

But I thought the whole reason Rudd was ousted in the first place was due to plummeting poll ratings ahead of the 2010 election, so I don't really see why this will make people vote for Labor. The party is a complete mess.

OMG Tirren, when I saw the I instantly started cracking open Sky News, BBC, CNN, Fox etc. thinking they'll all have it as breaking news that she'd passed away. :lol:

Poor Jools. Anybody who can stand up for fifteen minutes and rip Abbot a new one gets brownie points from me. I think the knitted kangaroo was the final nail in the coffin though.

 

But I thought the whole reason Rudd was ousted in the first place was due to plummeting poll ratings ahead of the 2010 election, so I don't really see why this will make people vote for Labor. The party is a complete mess.

That was mainly down to the Resource Super Profits Tax and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which had both had a lot of scare-mongering on how they'd effect the Australian economy, but which have now gone through and not had that much impact - plus Kevin Rudd was pretty unpopular within the party. Both aren't issues (so much) now, and Rudd is still quite popular with the public, so I think Labor have a fighting chance now.

I strongly object to the very misleading thread title.

I strongly object to your existence.

I've been having a read over a lot of stuff about her recently and some of the stuff is really quite shocking from a country like Australia. I always quite liked her, but that kangaroo thing was decidedly ODD and more than a little misguided.

OMG Tirren, when I saw the I instantly started cracking open Sky News, BBC, CNN, Fox etc. thinking they'll all have it as breaking news that she'd passed away. :lol:

 

I was wondering that as well! :lol: It's a shame because she seemed like a strong-willed politician but I obviously didn't agree on her views about gay rights and other issues.

I had the ABC News 24 stream on at work following this! I bloody love Australian Politics! There isn't a dull moment!

 

Yes, I am utterly delighted at this and QLD kicking NSW's arse in State of Origin II! It's been a bloody good day all round for Brisbane and Queensland. There were predictions at one point that the only Federal seat that the ALP would retain was going to be Griffith which is KRudd's. QLD is ruthless when it wants to be and as a Labor heartland showed no mercy when it threw Labor out of the State Parliament to such an extreme that it's a surprise they had any seats left there despite Anna Bligh being a well like Premier, especially in the aftermath of the big floods.

 

I think Rudd is in a far better position to beat the Coalition than Gillard ever could have been. She pushed through the unpopular carbon tax and ousted someone who was at the time, and still is now, popular with the electorate. She brought some brilliant reforms to Australia, nobody can doubt that. As a first female PM (Rising to power on my 21st *.*) her record pisses on Thatchers from a great height. She actually reformed while growing an economy (14% since 2007!) and maintaining low rates of unemployment. A lot of that she does have the work KRudd and Swany did together but they definitely had a Treasury with it's head screwed on.

 

For next moves I'd say KRudd has to ignore the lowball attacks that the Coalition have already started and come out with the policies he knows will win him the election. He's done it before and all the commentators on ABC were saying that KRudd is someone who thrives in this situation. Personally I think his best bet would be to highlight the big success of being the ONLY Western economy in the black and not to have entered a recession and to really point out that the Coalition want to go down the Austerity route that has utterly failed in Europe. I think it's his to lose. The thing I love most though is Wayne Swan's seat in North Brisbane would have turned LNP at the election had the horse he backed won, now it's almost certain to stay his and with the ALP. With Rudd in charge Labor save Queensland from defecting to the LNP especially with the harsh cuts the LNP state government have pushed through and that's a really key part of the Labor vote.

As I was watching the stream awaiting KRudd's victory speech, so I could dash to the loo and actually go on Lunch (2pm in the end), Julia visited the Governor General and resigned. At that time she nominated Kevin to take her place as the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia. She then left again all in less time than it took KRudd to get his arse to the Blue Room.

 

A lot of commentators were saying that it is uncertain if KRudd will be sworn in as PM. They said the constitutional options open to the GG were 1) Swear in KRudd and go about business as normal, 2) Wait to see if he has the support of the house before swearing him in 3) dissolve parliament early and force an election on August 3rd and 4) say f*** this shit and nominate the NLP moron to be the caretaker of parliament. The later is seen as the least likely option.

 

It's also unknown what effect this will have on the poll date of September 14th. Kevin can, in theory, push the election date to the end of November. However there were rumours from his camp that he would do the opposite and bring it forward to August 24th provided the GG doesn't force an election on the earliest possible date, August 3rd.

 

I'm not long home from work so I'm not fully up-to-date with the latest info but given that it was 11pm AEST when I went for Lunch after the victory speech I'm not expecting anything new or solid to come out of Canberra until 8/9am AEST, somewhere around 10/11pm GMT tonight.

I don't think (coastal) Australia could cope with an Abbott and Bishop administration.

Abbott is a complete mong. Prior to the 2010 election and Labor's initial meltdown he was gaff central. Coming out with Racist and bigoted remarks left right and central!

Indeed! I assume he's rather popular in the outback and in the north of the country? The next opinion poll should be interesting. Labor were at 29% a few days ago and the Liberals + cling-ons were at 48%, Gillard being at 33% and Abbott at 45%. :/

The 2007 election gave us the following picture:

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/National2007.GIF

 

The big cities are where Labour is quite strong with the Outback/Northern Territory being Labor. I'm about 95% certain that I lived in the seat of Moreton, the southern neighbour of KRudd's seat.

Outstanding contribution as per usual Chris, OUTSTANDING.

For some reason I always assumed the north of the country would be rather conservative (maybe they are, I dunno, Australia confuses me). Interesting to see Western Australia being Liberal given that it's quite mining-heavy.

I wonder if the Courier Mail is happy to see Gillard out?

 

http://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/p480x480/1017059_10151694073982702_2088641858_n.jpg

 

 

:lol:

For some reason I always assumed the north of the country would be rather conservative (maybe they are, I dunno, Australia confuses me). Interesting to see Western Australia being Liberal given that it's quite mining-heavy.

Well having a single seat for almost the entire state does help make it look Liberal dominated :lol:

 

I would say as a nation they are quite conservative and would lean towards the American Right/Left split rather than the European Right/Left split. The two big things for the public for an election is how soon they can get back to a budget surplus (After their last economic collapse they've been rather fond of their surplus) and asylum seekers/immigration. To say that Australia is right wing on immigration is an understatement and a half! The right economic and Immigration policies will decide this election I think.

Well having a single seat for almost the entire state does help make it look Liberal dominated :lol:

 

I would say as a nation they are quite conservative and would lean towards the American Right/Left split rather than the European Right/Left split. The two big things for the public for an election is how soon they can get back to a budget surplus (After their last economic collapse they've been rather fond of their surplus) and asylum seekers/immigration. To say that Australia is right wing on immigration is an understatement and a half! The right economic and Immigration policies will decide this election I think.

 

Oh that's what I thought but I didn't want to believe that one person could be responsible for a state the size of Germany and France combined. :lol:

 

It's interesting that immigration is SUCH an issue in Australia. Even the most liberal-minded Australians seem be in favour of extremely strict immigration control, which I guess would link in with economic concerns.

Oh that's what I thought but I didn't want to believe that one person could be responsible for a state the size of Germany and France combined. :lol:

 

It's interesting that immigration is SUCH an issue in Australia. Even the most liberal-minded Australians seem be in favour of extremely strict immigration control, which I guess would link in with economic concerns.

I'd say that somewhere around 250-300k people actually live in that massive chunk of WA. The Northern Territory has an actual population less than Iceland's with the Territory capital, Darwin, being the same size as Dundee!!

 

They are the prime destination for most of SE-Asia to come and work and stay illegally. It's hard to miss the bloody place by boat! The processing of Asylum seekers offshore or onshore is a big point of debate with many wanting it to take place outside of Commonwealth Territory to make it easier to get rid of them. Their immigration controls are ridiculously strict, somewhat of a left over from the 'White Australia Policy' days, some inbred racism too. Even given all that it makes a lot of sense. If I wanted to emigrate on a Permanent Residency Visa I'd have to prove I have enough money to support myself and employment for four years (May be three). If you lose your job on a sponsored visa and don't get a new one sharpish they deport you! They also block access to any form of benefits to non-Australians.

 

Memories from their last recession, which seriously scared them and almost killed their banks, means they really don't like spending money :lol: It's why I moved my cash to Clydesdale Bank. They are owned by National Australia Bank and spent years bitching at their Aussie owners who wouldn't let them play with HBOS, TSB and RBS. Now they are smug as hell at coming through the crisis entirely unscathed.