Some 18 months ago Julia Gillard defeated unpopular sitting Prime Minister and Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd and became Prime Minister of Australia, the all-in-one country and continent, home to about 21 million people.
Last week, Rudd quit his day job as Minister of Foreign Affairs to return to Parliament to try and unseat Gillard, an intra-party move in Oz that would be kind of like Hillary Clinton deciding she wanted to overthrow President Obama.
It didn’t work. As reported in The Spectator Australia, Gillard beat back the challenge “by a record 71 to 31 votes.” And the so-called “most unpopular Prime Minister in the history of Australia” lives to govern another day. Having recently made world headlines when an Australia Day near-riot by a group calling themselves the Aboriginal Tent Embassy forced Gillard’s security team to hustle her out of a restaurant, losing her shoe in the process, this Iron Lady lands with both shoes firmly planted on her feet – at least for now.
Australia’s Labor Party is similar to the American Democratic Party, opposed by the oddly named Liberals (read: Republicans). But, the Labor Party shenanigans set off by the return of Rudd (or “K Rudd” as the even more “most unpopular Prime Minister in Australia” calls himself) causes the Labor Party to resemble the current US GOP clown car of candidates for President.
Yikes. What has the Land Down Under gotten itself into?
Kathy Drasky regularly writes about online culture. Her marketing and communications work with the ANZA Technology Network, Advance Global Australians and with various Australians and Australian enterprises has led to at least a dozen trips Down Under.
An accomplished digital photographer, her photos have appeared in 7×7 Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle and Google Schmap.
