From the Guardian

Julia Gillard calls snap Australian election

Australia's first female prime minister says 21 August election will be dominated by the economy

By Peter Beaumont
The Observer
Sunday 18 July 2010


Julia Gillard believes that Australia needs a carbon tax to combat global warming. Photograph: Cole Bennetts/Getty Images


Julia Gillard, Australia's prime minister of three weeks, yesterday called a snap election for 21 August – with the economy likely to be a major issue.

The country's first female prime minister, Welsh-born Gillard was appointed by the ruling Labor party as the government faced what seemed like certain electoral defeat, and a party coup saw Kevin Rudd ousted. Since then, however, Gillard has been credited with rebuilding support for her party, to an extent that Labor is narrowly ahead in the opinion polls.

The election will pit the 48-year-old against the conservative Liberal party leader Tony Abbott, who needs to win only nine seats to form a government.

"Today I seek a mandate from the Australian people to move Australia forward," Gillard told a news conference. "Moving forward means moving forward with budget surpluses and a stronger economy."

Another key battleground in a country already suffering the effects of global warming will be climate change. Gillard will argue that a carbon tax is inevitable, while Abbott rejects it. It is an issue on which Labor has been particularly vulnerable, losing key Green support in the past year over its failure to introduce a carbon trading scheme.

A final key issue will be immigration. Gillard has reversed her party's opposition to a third country processing refugee claims, and approached East Timor about establishing a regional refugee processing centre. East Timor's parliament quickly voted to reject her plan.

The election will be a competition between two very different personalities – Abbott is a pugnacious and socially conservative Catholic who once trained for the priesthood, and is opposed to same-sex marriages and abortions, while agnostic Gillard is unmarried but has a long-time partner, and is childless.

Gillard studied law at universities in Adelaide and Melbourne, where she became a leader in the national student union movement. She became deputy Labor leader under Rudd after striking a deal with him in 2006 to topple the then leader, Kim Beazley.

Originally Posted by Francois Cellier

Did anyone ever tell her that she looks like Jodie Foster?

What, that Foster does not have hairy nostrils and neither does Gillard?

Who knows whether they regularly have their nostrils plucked, in anticipation of a shot just like this?

Originally Posted by Francois Cellier

Neither the government under Gillard nor the Liberal-National opposition (which is neither liberal nor national) under former trainee catholic priest Tony Abbott is impressing the population at large with their vision for Australia:



Abbott is doomed to the end of his political days to be depicted by cartoonists as wearing red budgie smugglers.