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Australia Gets Its First Female Prime Minister
An anonymous reader writes "Julia Gillard has been elected unopposed to the Labor leadership, seizing power in a bloodless Parliament House coup after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd decided not to contest this morning's leadership ballot. Ms. Gillard will now be sworn in as Australia's first female prime minister. Emerging from this morning's meeting, she said she felt 'very honored' and said she would be making a statement shortly. Treasurer Wayne Swan now steps up as deputy prime minister. He was also elected unopposed."
The news value here being a Prime Minister's gender is condescending to Julia Gillard as a politician.
The news value should be "Aus PM changes: Will she drop Conroy?"
I for one, welcome our new ginger overlord
Does this mean they're done trying to cut the cable to the Internet in Australia, or is that still on?
Canada's first and, so far, only female Prime Minister also took office by becoming party leader and with no general election in between.
Someone tell me if i should hate her or not, the internet has failed me so far
Unfortunately time and again, women politicians have proven themselves to be just as incompetent and corrupt (especially with their favouritism towards big business and their contributions) as male politicians.
As a women, I have yet to notice any women president or prime-minister leading a western country that has put any additional emphasis over their male counterparts in the same political party on women's only issues: gender discrimination, reproductive rights, healthcare inequalities, etc. So seeing a women as head of state no longer inspires me.
No she didn't, Australians can spell.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This argument makes me want to kill myself.
Who cares that she was unelected? You voted for a party, not an individual, you moron. The policies of the party are unlikely to change significantly under Julia. The party leader can and is elected or negotiated) by the party, not the public.
I mean are people really this fucking stupid? I'll give you a hint - yes they are.
While I'm ranting, there's another thing I hate. I hate this ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf3KovsW1Zo Actually I love the ad, it's friggin' hilarious. What I hate is the fact that this is the quality of election campaigning which political advisors think is worth engaging in. I hate this because this indicates that this is the sort of thing people are persuaded by when they decide who to vote for. People are persuaded more by a cute, idiotic cartoon, than actual political records, history and peformance. Those people are fucking stupid.
I mean think about it - Kevin was replaced mostly because he was unpopular with voters, and Julia gives Labor a better chance at the next election. This in itself proves the point - despite things not being significantly different under Julia, this change of leader will sway people's votes. WHY SHOULD IT?! It shouldn't, but it does.
Basically I hate the way democratic politics works, it's crap. And I hate stupid people. Stupid people shouldn't have this much influence.
-Brendan
Unlike the USA where all of the most senior government decision makers, with the sole exception of the President, are appointed? Do Americans get to vote for the foreign minister, attorney general, treasurer et al? No. No they don't. They are appointed.
How democratic is it when the most powerful positions in the land are filled by the unelected?
A dream is good. A plan is better.
Julia Gillard has been elected unopposed to the Labor leadership, seizing power in a bloodless Parliament House coup after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd decided not to contest this morning's leadership ballot.
Oh come on. Did you really need to tell us that the parliamentary "coup" in Australia was bloodless?
"As a women" - Are you a hive mind?
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
I'm sorry; I couldn't let this pass without response.
Women's only issues? Seriously? I'm going to assume you're just using short-hand for a more nuanced idea, but still the underlying ideology warrants consideration. Last time I checked the fact that I have a penis didn't make reproductive rights any less of a personal, moral, political, and societal concern. Ignoring the fact that I have a mother, grandmother, sisters, female friends, colleagues, fellow citizens, potential future daughters et al, the fact is that there are underlying issues of fairness, law, and justice that make this relevant to me and mine. I'm not Black but I care about, and am directly affected, by racial equality. I'm not a sportsman but Title IX effects me. I'm not a pirate but IP laws effect me. I’m not a Fox viewer but their freedom of speech effects me. I’m not on death row but their experience effects me. All these things effect my life as a citizen and member of society, they speak to my values, my morals, my interests, and my obligations.
Discrimination affects us all and strikes at the basic fundamental underpinnings of democratic society. Sexism is just as much about relegating women as it is about controlling men and the way they live their lives, it affects the effeminate man, the homosexual man, the artistic and the socially awkward.
A woman shouldn't be placing any additional emphasis on these issues, that's interest politics at their worst. Male politicians often care deeply about said issues, their female counterparts are under no heightened obligation to aggressively pursue an agenda because of their testicular inadequacies.
The did have a say - they had their say in 2007, and will have another say in only a couple of months.
Australians vote for their local members, and the party (or coalition) with the most members forms government.
The party then elects their leader, who becomes prime minister.
Labor elected Rudd initially, and now they decided to elect Gillard instead.
Also, she was deputy Prime Minister, and went as such into the election, so it's not like people were voting for Labor without the knowledge that she would have some power - and that she'd be filling in as PM from time to time anyway.
Advanced users are users too!
Senator Kate Lundy is a contender and she opposes the filter.
Whoever gets the post has to deal with the Telstra monopoly (bastard child of government and private enterprise with the worst aspects of both and none of the good aspects), so it might go to somebody the PM hates but needs to give an important job to keep a faction happy.
Politics is often quite disgusting if you look at it too closely
Lindsay Tanner announced his retirement right after the new PM got in. That tells me the election will be sooner rather than later. Internet filtering is the main issue of interest to /. so I propose we get organized and attack Stephen Conroy.
Lets all put Conroy last. Copy my sig. Spread the word. Send a message to Gillard on this subject.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
They do. Westminster system. We do not elect the prime minister, we elect the parliament. The parliament elects the prime minister. If a political party holds more than 50% of the parliament, then this will be the (party-)elected leader of that party. The only non-members of parliament who voted for Kevin Rudd are the labour voters in his local electorate in QLD. Might wanna read up on how our democracy works sometime...
Does she have some sort of pouch in which to store her young?
Monstar L
So which reproductive rights were you hoping that your penis is granted?
Not sleeping on the couch would be right up there
I'm going to assume the parent is American and thus doesn't realise what the office of Prime Minister actually represents. If the parent is Australian, then, I don't know what to say :P
The Prime Minister is the almost-exact equivalent of the House Majority Leader in the US. The leader of the political party currently holding the most seats in the lower house/chamber.
In the US, the House Majority Leader is not directly elected. Similarly, neither is the Prime Minister in the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, or any other Westminster system country. This does not mean those countries are not democracies.
Slashdot is just working its way through the alphabet of centric foci:
America
Apple
Australia
In October, we'll be expecting a slurry of submissions from Bavaria, followed subsequently by the BBC, Belgium and some guy called Bill.
A nematode would be an upgrade from Pauline Hanson. Julia Gillard is not from an extremely racist part of Queensland. Her seat may be in the western suburbs of Melbourne, and as someone who used to live there, they're not high up on the social scale, but they aren't filled with extremely racist people, either.
Never has anything more inappropriate been said by accident.
(Julia has been attacked by a notorious opposition ratbag for being childless by choice.)
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
We had the same thing happen in the UK with our previous government, and it turned out to be a great boon to the economy.
Oh, wait...
Given that Australia follows the Westminster system, and our government is a representative one (i.e. we all vote to choose our own electorate's representatives), then no Prime Minister is 'voted in' directly by us (well, unless you live in his electorate). The party with superior numbers in the Legislative Assembly has a leader it elects, and that party is invited by the Governor-General to form government. If the party elects a new leader, then they by definition are the elected Prime Minister.
And if you're suggesting that K. Rudd was any less beholden to the 'big, bad Unions' than J.Gillard, and secured his leadership solely with the aid of non-union aligned factions and a bit of magic pixie dust...
It's like complaining a vote for Liberal is a really vote for Corporate Swill-meisters: the power bases of the major political parties have been pretty much as is for all eternity.
I didn't vote for K. Rudd either, but all the best to Ms Gillard. Just please Julia, dump that dead arse Conroy and whatever wheelbarrow he pushes, tell Fielding to stick his poison apple support, and get on with the job.
"Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
ALP-Right is the main backer for Julia. Those are the guys who rather purposefully don't want anything done about Climate Change (because it's too "controversial") and have been backing the Federal ALP's general move towards conservatism.
So those issues that caused the Australian public to generally move away from the ALP will continue to be issues for the ALP and voters will continue to desert them for favour of, particularly, the Greens. Look forward, also, to the Super Profits Tax being scaled back, as much as moving away from fixed price royalties to an actual percent-of-profit based tax system is the right way to go (and is supported by most of the public).
Julia wasn't exactly innocent in the ALP's shift to conservatism, either. She was the one pushing the MySchool website which props up private schools and other schools who focus more on achievement tests than they do on actually educating their children. She was also the one who tried to foment a war between parents and teachers over "poor" school results. It's your fault, Julia, because you are the one underfunding education.
The election coming up, the ALP will probably lose seats to the Greens in the Upper House and maybe even in the Lower House. They may even lose the election, and Julia won't do a damn thing about it.
As has been said many many times in this thread already, if you voted for your MP, and by extension his/her party, on the basis of who the party leader was then you don't understand how your own political system works. You gave your MP a mandate to represent you. Because enough people did likewise for members of the same party, you collectively gave the party a mandate to govern you. You didn't have this leader "forced" on you any more than you did the last one.
In short, if you thought that at the last election you were voting for the prime minister then you are, as per the meme, doin it rong.