Julia Gillard: is she a History or Worst PM ever Of Australia

there have been lots of great leaders and poiticians in the world who not only change the way of progress but history also. now lets move towards the Autralia where Julia Gillard ruling lets know about her life and work 

Personal profile

Julia Eileen GILLARD

Born:                   29 September 1961, Barry, Wales

Education:               BA, LLB (Melb)

Employment:              Solicitor (1987–95); Partner (1990–95); Chief of Staff to the Victorian Leader of the Opposition, J Brumby, MLA (1996–98)         

Political profile

Terms as PM:                  24 June 2010–

Terms as MP:                  House of Representatives for Lalor, Victoria, 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2007

Portfolios:            Deputy Prime Minister: 3 December 2007 – 24 June 2010 
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations: 3 December 2007 – 28 June 2010 
Minister for Education: 3 December 2007 – 28 June 2010 
Minister for Social Inclusion: 3 December 2007 – 28 June 201

Terms as PM: 24 June 2010–

Terms as MP: House of Representatives for Lalor, Victoria, 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2007

Portfolios:

Deputy Prime Minister: 3 December 2007 – 24 June 2010 
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations: 3 December 2007 – 28 June 2010 
Minister for Education: 3 December 2007 – 28 June 2010 

Minister for Social Inclusion: 3 December 2007 – 28 June 2010

Julia Eileen Gillard was on born 29 September 1961, is the 27th and current Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Australian Labor Party since 24 June 2010. She is the first woman to hold either office.

Gillard was born in Barry, Wales, and migrated with her family to Adelaide, South Australia, in 1966, attending Mitcham Demonstration School and Unley High School. In 1982, she moved to Melbourne, Victoria. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws in 1986. In 1987, Gillard joined the law firm Slater & Gordon, specialising in industrial law, before entering politics.[2][3]

Gillard was first elected to the House of Representatives at the 1998 federal election for the seat of Lalor, Victoria. Following the 2001 federal election, she was elected to the Shadow Cabinet and was given the portfolio of Population and Immigration. In 2003, she took on responsibility for both Reconciliation and Indigenous Affairs and Health. In December 2006, when Kevin Rudd was elected as Labor Leader and became Leader of the Opposition, Gillard was elected unopposed as his deputy.[2]

Gillard became the first female Deputy Prime Minister of Australia upon Labor's victory in the 2007 federal election, also serving as both Minister for Education and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. On 24 June 2010, after Rudd lost the support of his party and resigned, Gillard was elected unopposed as the Leader of the Labor Party, thus becoming the 27th Prime Minister of Australia.[4] The subsequent 2010 federal election saw the first hung parliament since the 1940 federal election. Gillard was able to form a minority government with the support of a Green MP and three independent MPs.[5][6]

Julia Gillard told ABC radio in Melbourne that she was not prepared to go through ‘religious rituals’ for the sake of appearances. 

Ms Gillard added: ‘I am, of course, a great respecter of religious beliefs, but they are not my beliefs. 

Julia Gillard | Facebook

www.facebook.com/juliagillard

‘For people of faith, I think the greatest compliment I could pay them is to respect their genuinely-held beliefs and not to engage in some pretence about mine. 

Ms Gillard’s views are in contrast with those of former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who was a regular at Canberra church services and opposition leader Tony Abbot, who is a devout Catholic. 

Julia Gillard (JuliaGillard) on Twitter

https://twitter.com/JuliaGillard

In an interview with reports she tells Do you feel you have some similarities to Obama?

We are sister political parties — the Labor Party and the Democrats. Organizationally and in a values sense, we’ve got a lot in common. In terms of the value that we put on opportunity, education, social mobility and building the future, I think the political pictures are quite aligned.

What have you learned from Obama’s campaign that you feel you can apply to yours?

The organizational techniques, like our political party’s social media strategy.

Two years after he was elected as prime minister, you ousted Kevin Rudd.

That’s not quite what actually happened. The Labor government was first elected in 2007, with Kevin Rudd as prime minister and me as deputy prime minister. I served very loyally as Kevin’s deputy. But in order to be prime minister, you need to enjoy the continuing support of your political party, and in 2010, he no longer enjoyed that. So, I requested of him that there be a leadership ballot. He chose not to contest it because he knew his support was so slender.

People say he is going to try to come back now.

They have said that continuously since 2010. Kevin put himself forward for the leadership again in February last year and was quite resoundingly defeated, and has from then on maintained that he will not challenge [me] for the leadership.

So you are not worried?

Not at all.

Reportedly, many Labor members who are worried about losing their seats believe that if Rudd were heading the party, Labor might lose fewer seats. Do you believe there’s any validity to that?

You could have said that in January of last year, and we had the ballot in February. You could have said that anytime — it’s been a continuing background commentary. Nothing comes of it, and nothing will.

So you don’t think the party will rise up?

No, I don’t.

Do you think you can beat Tony Abbott?

I certainly do. . . . I think that, ultimately, what he has put before the Australian community is a strategy of continuing negativity. It’s not a strategy for the nation’s future. When it comes to voting day, people will have to make a decision about who has a better plan for the future and who has the better character and temperament to deliver that plan.

You mentioned the carbon tax as an accomplishment of yours. But you promised in the 2010 campaign that you would not enact a carbon tax. Then, after the election, you did. Is the trust factor a problem for you?

It’s been a big issue in Australian politics and for me. For most of the period between 2007 and 2010, having an emissions-trading scheme was bipartisan politics. That ceased to be bipartisan politics late in 2009 when Mr. Abbott, who had personally been in favor of an emissions-trading scheme, put himself forward for the leadership of the Liberal Party on an anti-carbon-pricing platform. . . .

In the 2010 campaign, I ruled out having a carbon tax. After the election, we ended up with a minority government. In order to get carbon pricing through the Parliament, I needed to agree that for the first three years there would be a carbon tax, and then it would go to an emissions-trading scheme

WHEN Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan walked side by side into the caucus room to destroy Kevin Rudd's prime minister ship, they looked like a happy bride and groom being carried along on a hydrofoil of love to the altar.

But we know what newlyweds do. They celebrate consummate and then get down to the business of slowly destroying each other.

Will the marriage last?

For Swan, the new Deputy Prime Minister, the end of Rudd is sweet indeed.

They managed to maintain a reasonable working relationship but there was a deep, underlying resentment, particularly for Swan.

Back when they were both moving from Queensland to Canberra, the two had an arrangement that Swan would go first, if and when it came to contesting the leadership.

Rudd didn't keep his promise and worked behind Swan's back.

Queensland backroom powerbroker Vic Ludwig had to negotiate an uneasy truce.

Swan's smile reflected his delight in seeing Rudd's fall, and his belief Labor could now win.

Gillard's smile was different. It reflected everything she has worked for.

The Punch: Why Julia Gillard is no Kristina Keneally

As Rudd broke down and finally, too late, showed us the real Rudd we have always wanted to see (and finally, as well, gave us some more gripping television viewing than MasterChef), Gillard then took the stage and gave a controlled exposition of who she is, and how she wants to be seen: calm, concerned and involved.

It was almost frightening to see not only how easily Gillard had assumed the prime ministership, but had become the Prime Minister.

She is clearly a natural, unfrightened of power or challenge. She bluntly asked the people for a short window of time to clean up the mess Rudd had left for her, and the Australian people.

·         Her quick announcement that she would immediately suspend all Government mining super-tax advertising was smart.

·         The message to the public was that a long period of being force-fed fastidiously fashioned bulls. .t was now, hopefully, coming to an end. It spoke of a leader prepared to deal with the substance and to take the time to explain policy.

·         Julia Eileen Gillard, 48, claims a deep connection to the people of Australia.

·         Her parents John and Moira were 10 pound poms, strangers in a new land who appeared not to use their arrival to strike out for riches but worked in humble jobs helping the elderly and mentally unwell.

·         Immigrants need courage and creativity; they need open minds and sturdy hearts, Gillard said in her maiden speech to Parliament.

An immigrant girl with parents of slender means who grew up to become not only Prime Minister, but the first female prime minister. Gillard's is a remarkable Australian story.

BUT Gillard's tokenistic claims that she was accepting the job

with humility, while standard rhetoric for an incoming PM, are not to be believed. There was nothing humble about the speed with which she dispatched Rudd. She revealed a level of controlled ruthlessness that many suspected existed but doubted they'd see until after the 2010 election, when it was expected she would move.

She could have been talking about Rudd, the man whose heart she has broken.

Gillard, the woman who appears not to have bad hair days but a bad hair life, will return the Labor Party to Labor people after 2 1/2 years in the hands of Rudd.

Gillard, totally in control, utterly confident, smiled at Abbott. She'd only been PM for moments but it already seemed she'd buried Rudd weeks ago.

GILLARD was born in a town in Wales which clearly foretold that she was Australia-bound. The town was called Barry. Her father worked in the coal mines of a place called Cwmgwrach.

"It all sounds like Coal Miner's Daughter sort of stuff," Gillard told reporter Matt Price in 2003, "and I'm not trying to make it sound like that. But my father was one of seven kids in a coal-mining village and their father was injured in a mining accident, which means he could only do surface work, which was not as well paid."

Little Julia was plagued by a severe recurring pneumonia, which her mother put down to freezing Atlantic winds.

Julia once spent six days in an oxygen tent and the family doctor suggested only a new, warmer climate would repair her. They moved to Adelaide when Julia was five.

Gillard was a lefty activist student who moved between the Adelaide and Melbourne Universities, took a law degree and worked for the legal firm known for its class actions, Slater & Gordon, where she handled industrial law.

She became then-Victorian Opposition leader John Brumby's chief of staff and made a failed tilt for the Senate in 1995. She has held the Victorian House of Reps seat of Lalor since 1998.

Curiously, her official biography lists her personal status as single, even though she has a partner named Tim Mathieson, a hairdresser who appears to have been presented with too great a challenge in managing the Gillard head.

Gillard was previously in a relationship with federal Labor member Craig Emerson and, before that, with Australian Workers Union official Bruce Wilson. Gillard says not having children was a decision, not an oversight. She has said she has never felt the call.

Gillard was once seen as strongly aligned with the Victorian Left, but she knew being part of the leadership circle would require a more moderate, pragmatic reinvention.

It was Labor's faceless men who colluded across states, and across factions, to install her yesterday. They chose her simply because she was the best-performing frontbencher and they no longer believed Rudd had a hope of winning.

Gillard said Labor had to retain mandatory detention for offshore arrivals, angering her former Left buddies. In reality, Gillard was jockeying.

On Wednesday night, as Rudd sat on Death Row, he launched into a bitter aside in his late-night media conference as he declared the challenge on.

She said she was full of understanding for those Australians who were worried about unauthorized boat arrivals and suggested, without giving any detail, that she was about to get tough on them.

On the commitment to Afghanistan, Gillard said a thank you to the troops but left open her real thoughts, and will no doubt keep it that way until after the election.

It was extraordinary to hear the Australian media applaud both Rudd and Gillard after their respective speeches. The Australian media does not do that. It's seen as too partisan, too familiar.

GILLARD freely acknowledged the Rudd Government had gone off track. "I take my fair share of responsibility for the Rudd Government's record, for our important achievements and for errors made," she said.

"I also certainly acknowledge that I have not been elected prime minister by the Australian people."

Indeed. But no prime minister is, at least in theory, elected by the people.

Rudd was.

He was most emotional when recalling the day he had said "Sorry" to indigenous Australians. Gillard said, in that moment he had made wonderful history. The problem is, there was nothing hard about saying "Sorry". It may have been significant, but it was not difficult.

once she told in speech 

I grew up, went to school, and took my first steps into work, university and adulthood here.

Whether it's memories of the fruit trees in our back yard, playing at Brown Hill Creek, being taught to knit by the elderly women who lived at Sunset Lodge where my mother worked or having my favourite teacher, Mr Crowe, correct my grammar at primary school, my recollections of this place and its people are good.

I arrived here, aged four, the guest of a generous nation.

This country and this city, along with my parents, my sister, my teachers and my friends formed my outlook, my character, my philosophy and political purpose.

Today I want to use this occasion to tell you a little more about how I came to this moment in time and about my beliefs and how I intend to put them into practice as Prime Minister.

I mentioned my parents just now. Many of you will feel like you know them well given they have recently become TV stars. Indeed I meet people around the country who literally say to me I'm not sure about you yet but I love your parents'.

I'm standing before you today because of the brave decision they made in 1966 to migrate to Australia. Originally bound for Melbourne, they met and befriended a Welsh couple on the board the ship that brought us to Australia.

Knowing no-one else in Australia, it made sense to settle in Adelaide, the home town of their new friends, who became our Uncle Frank and Aunty Glad.

My parents' story is important because they and millions of others have helped make this country what it is today. It wasn't easy to leave their little Welsh town behind, just as it wasn't easy for people from other countries like Greece and Italy and Vietnam to do the same, and arrive at Pennington Migrant Hostel, without family or friends to greet them and to carry their suitcases to the car.

Being British, it was easier for them than for others. They spoke English although I guess you could say with a strange accent. Some say their daughter still speaks with a strange accent!

But without higher education, obtaining even their moderate level of prosperity involved a lot of hard work. For my mother it meant cooking and scrubbing pots in a Salvation Army aged care home. And for my father it meant demanding work and frequent nightshifts, as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. Their experience has instilled in me clear beliefs about the importance and the value of work that I hold to this day.

As the daughter of these two fine people, I know what it's like to have a dad who has to work two jobs and a mum who has to work the afternoon shift to buy a home and educate their kids.

My father's two jobs helped me secure two university degrees, and I'll never forget the sacrifices he and my mother made. And I say to all those parents doing the same thing now whether it's to pay the mortgage, bills, or school fees and expenses I understand your sacrifices and I will do my best as Prime Minister to ease your burden.

My parents have thrived in this egalitarian country with its larrikin embrace of informality because they are egalitarian by instinct. They embraced the sense of opportunity and community that they found in Australia and the sense of future possibilities for their children that Australia so clearly offered them.

They always taught me that everyone is equal and worthy of respect. It's wrong to view yourself as better than the person who waits on you in a restaurant. It's wrong to believe that you should defer to anyone simply by dint of them having a title, occupation or background different from your own.

I was a shy child, who through the nurture of my family found the sense of self to face the world with confidence, to look others in the eye and greet them with a firm shake of the hand.

Though my parents never had the chance to go to university, they are to this day avid readers and my father is given to quoting poetry at the dinner table.

We hear a lot today from commentators that Australians can be sliced and diced into separate tribes with different values, tastes and ambitions, based on how long they stayed in education and where they live.

Those commentators divide us into elites, aspirationals and rednecks, and presume they can predict the views we have and the way we vote. Driven by my own family background, I consider this an insult.

I know that under every roof there are people who love going to art galleries and people who love going to the MCG and people who love both; people who go to church and people who go to protests and people who will do both in the one day; people whose talents lie in their heads and people whose talents lie in their hands and people who rely on different talents at different stages of their lives.

It's true that there are ignorant and intolerant people in every society, but the overwhelming majority of Australians are far more thoughtful and tolerant and compassionate than the critics imagine.

I know this because they are my neighbours and friends.

As I said last week we're better than the cynics believe us to be. We're not elites, aspirationals and rednecks. We're simply Australians and proud of it.

So we should be slow to judge and to stereotype each other.

My parents would put this far more simply they would say don't judge a book by its cover.

Plain speaking is another one of their virtues which I strive to maintain.

You might say that, along with an apprenticeship in straight talking, I inherited two unshakeable beliefs from my upbringing.

First, I believe in the importance of hard work; the obligation that we all owe to ourselves and others, to earn our keep and do our best.

Life is given direction and purpose by work. Without work there is corrosive aimlessness. With the loss of work comes a loss of dignity.

Second, I believe in the transformative power of education. Education is the route to opportunity and self improvement; in today's Australia more so than ever.

With my parents' support and encouragement, I attended local schools, excellent schools here in South Australia. They were the places I discovered my love of learning, my enthusiasm for correct grammar and punctuation, my respect for discipline, even my liking for my school uniform! I think I still have my prefect's tie to this day.

Whatever else young people may encounter in life, a sound foundation of excellent, rigorous education, ought to be their entitlement.

These beliefs are my inheritance. How I have pursued them throughout my adult life has been my own responsibility.

Moving from Unley High School to the University of Adelaide did open up a new world for me.

In those heady days of campus life and university politics I began my own journey. It has taken me on different paths and to different destinations than those of my parents. But it has been driven by the same values and aspirations.

Where my parents put the working effort of their lives into moving our family forward, my efforts have become focused on efforts to move our country forward.

My sister, Alison, chose her own path, devoting her care and skill to being a mother.

As my own career developed starting in the student union movement, through my years as a lawyer, then into my time in Parliament I increasingly became both an activist and an optimist. I became someone who believes that tomorrow can be better than today if you strive to make it so.

And as that attitude matured in me, it found its expression in a commitment, even a passion, for public service.

Australia's history contains great moments and unrepeatable achievements. But that does not stop us from looking forward, or from having a positive obligation to make the future even brighter than the past.

We can be proud of our past. And we can be confident about moving forward. The best way to strengthen that confidence, to reduce fear and anxiety, is to recognise the need for change and take deliberate steps forward together.

And so, as I come here to my childhood home, I am reminded that at the core of so many of Australia's problems and opportunities today is a fundamental choice.

It is really a variant of the age-old question every nation has faced: whether to resist change, or master it; whether to condemn new ways of thinking or welcome them; whether to defend the way things are, or to declare we can do better'.

In the simplest terms, it is a choice about whether we move forward or back.

I passionately believe that at our very core as Australians is an instinct to move forward - to summon our courage, think through our plans, and shape our future.

Going back is simply inconsistent with the Australian character.

We are a people who are descended overwhelmingly from newcomers; people who have lived in and settled a rugged land; people who constantly embraced innovation in order to build modern farms and cities.

Australia was not built by people who sat still, closed their eyes, or shied away from new terrain.

We are not a people who nourished our ambitions on a diet of nostalgia, indifference and denial.

My own life is rooted in that sense of forward motion that is at the core of our nation's story.

It reflects that underlying promise that you can see in so many Australian life stories; that if you work hard, play by the rules, treat others with respect and do your best to contribute then you can move forward, but more important, so can our nation move forward.

As your Prime Minister, I intend to start and lead the discussions and debates that we must have to shape our future for the better.

I will speak plainly about the challenges, truthfully about the risks and methodically about the steps we need to take.

As I said on my first day as Prime Minister, there will be some days that I delight you and some days that I disappoint you.

But every day I will be working my hardest for you.

Some of the challenges that face our nation are daunting.

They will take a long time to overcome.

That is why I believe that, alongside the practical action that will be necessary, we must make the effort to have the honest conversation, to bring people with us, to make it clear what we actually have to do in order to get things right.

In the days to come I will be putting forward more detailed arguments about some of the biggest challenges facing our nation. I will be explaining the steps I think we need to take and asking for people's consideration of those steps.

I will ask for the Australian people's trust to move Australia forward.

Without listening respectfully to the public's views, I do not believe it is possible for politicians to earn or hold the trust of the people who elect us. Leadership requires listening and persuading, understanding and bold action.

As I said, some of the challenges are daunting.

But my overwhelming sense in coming into this job is one of optimism.

Optimism because of what has already been achieved by the people who have made Australia what is today.

Optimism because of the capacity and decency of the millions of Australians who now contribute, in their own way, without thanks or praise, to making it a better place.

Australia is a wonderful country, the greatest country on earth.

We should not fear the future. The best days of our nation lie in front of us not behind us.

We are privileged to live here and we best respect that great privilege by working together, shaping a better future, going forward not back.

Thank you very much.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au