July 05, 2010
Julia Gillard is the new Prime Minister of Australia.
It would be as if Hillary were named as the acting president of the United States, should Obama step down and be able to name his successor. But that would require a real sea change. Oh, that's right. There IS a sort of a sea change going on in the Gulf of Mexico... Still, Julia Gillard is unique by many standards. Called “an unmarried female atheist redheaded migrant Prime Minister,” she promises a budget surplus for Australia by 2013. A carbon emissions tax and a share in the mineral wealth of the country for all it's citizens sounds to me like her plan.
Australian monkeys please tell us more. (We're kind of provincial, isolated and insular over here in the US.) But here is an Australian podcast that shows some giddy excitement at least.
-
I don't know much about her apart from what I read in the article you linked. But based on that, at least, Julia Gillard sounds fairly awesome.
-
Actually, Hillary is Fourth in the Official Line of Presidential Succession so you'd also need to step down, die or be incapacitated: VP Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (who'd be the first woman American President before Hil) and Senate President ProTem Daniel Inouye (who I like better being the Longest Seated Senator than old Robert Byrd; Inouye was also on the Watergate Committee in the 70s, he knows history, and having been the Senator from Hawaii ever since it's been a state - and longer than Obama's been alive - and still being fully eligible to hold the post would be a big FU to the 'Birthers'). After that, the succession list runs down the President's Cabinet, ending with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, which is ironic, since if it ever got to her turn, we would REALLY be having problems with Security...
-
Maybe comparing Julia to Hillary was a misleading distraction? Sorry if that offended anyone. Or maybe there just ARE no Australian monkeys left to clarify things down there anymore?
-
There's a muffled yelling going on over on the Big Brown Island, but what I can gather is she's "kickin' ass and taking numbers". She's Welsh, y'know.
-
It was all a bit bizarre from my point of view - was on holiday, so out of the loop, and all of a sudden hear on the radio that Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd. Wha? But it all seems to have happened with a minimum of fuss. No biggie.
-
Hopefully Australia will avoid alleged voter fraud.
-
She has refused to take up residence in the official Prime Minister's residence until her post has been validated by the public at the next election, scheduled for August 21.
-
Results decidedly undecided.
-
Her carbon tax on big polluters now a done deal.
-
Also, Australian uranium will now be sold to India.
-
OMG! What's going on over there?
-
Unreality Check
-
Now Wikileaks may sue her.
-
Kevin Rudd has retaken the helm of the hulking ship of state.
-
Budget surplus prediction fail, for one thing. But whatever. Kevin Rudd has retaken the helm of the Labor party and soon the hulk which is the ship of state. Julia Gillard ousted.
-
Didn't Rudd not so long ago state that he was never going to stand for PM again? Ahhh, these jocular politicians.