Julia Gillard  (Labor Party of  Australia  )

•Born in Wales. As a baby she contracted a severe lung infection and spent weeks in a oxygen tent in hospital, prompting her parents to migrate to the warmer climate of Australia

• Former secretary of Socialist Forum

•Lobbied for the scrapping of the ANZUS treaty

•Had a two-year relationship with fellow Minister Craig Emerson, who was married with three children at the time

•While working as a lawyer, had an affair with one of her clients, an allegedly corrupt union official, and set up bank accounts that helped him laundry money, some of which may have been spent on the renovations of her house. When exposed, her firm accepted her resignation and she spent 6 months unemployed

•A royal commission into corruption responded to her demands to be trusted due to her "good character" responded by finding, “A further problem raised by the submission is that though there is virtually no evidence of Julia Gillard’s good reputation and character beyond that which is to be inferred from her status as a former prime minister"

•First female prime minister

•A proud athiest

• Only unmarried prime minister

•Attacked the Greens for not having family values

•Opposed paid parental leave

•Said she didn't believe in gay marriage and that mariage should be between a man and a woman

•Said women "do not think the same way as men"

•Said that women in marriage are like prostitutes

•Stood behind MP Craig Thomson who had been found to have misused up to $500,000 of union funds on expenses such as prostitutes

•Gave her boyfriend, a hairdresser, a job as health ambassador

•Said, " I’m just going to be upfront about this: foreign policy is not my passion"

•In May 2010, said, "There's more chance of me becoming the full-forward for the Dogs (Western Bulldogs AFL team) than there is any chance of a change in the Labor party."

•In June 2010, challenged for the leadership of the Labor Party and won

•Vowed not to introduce a carbon tax before her maiden election. After forming a coalition with the Greens MP, introduced a carbon tax

•A member of her staff collaborated with a union official and media to incite a racial protest against the leader of the opposition. The plan backfired when Aborigines turned on her

•After leading the Labor Party in a disastrous election, claimed her predecessor had sabotaged it

• After leading Labor to its lowest ever poll ratings, claimed her leadership was being sabotaged by her predecessor

• After her predecessor went to the back bench and remained silent on all issues, blamed the media for sabotaging her government

•When she found out that Peter Slipper, a member of the Liberal Party, would lose pre-selection because of alleged dubious conduct, she offered him a deal to become speaker of the house and so gain an extra vote. Slipper subsequently had sexual harassment and fraud allegations levelled against him and had to stand aside

•Made a deal with an independent to crack down on problem gambling using poker machines. Reneged on deal when she was able to manipulate numbers to eliminate the need for the independent

•Said if she had been Aboriginal, rather than a woman, there would have been more outrage at the discrimination she believed she suffered.

•When she discovered that her speaker referred to a jar of muscles as a jar of delicious "salty ***ts", stood by him and launched into a speech accusing her critics of misogyny.

•Polls showed that she was the most unpopular prime minister in history.

•After polls showed that she was leading Labor to oblivion, her party replaced her with Kevin Rudd, the predecessor that most of the party couldn’t stand.

MAIN POLITICAL TRICK

As her popularity fell into freefall as one policy disaster followed another, perhaps Gillard saw the gender card as an excuse to have a legacy other than the most unpopular prime minister in Australian history. It seemed to protect her ego but it did not help her party in the polls.

VERDICT

By her own measure, Gillard was a failure. Gillard blamed her failure on sexism of the Australian public. Perhaps a more objective reading would be that she was so desperate to hold onto power that she sold her soul to an opposition party and independents in a way that made it impossible to portray herself as honourable, honest and capable of solving the difficult problems.  At the very least, history will not assert her as a leader of great morality. As the royal commission into union corruption found, aside from her status as a former prime minister, there was nothing in her history to suggest she was of good character.

Gee, let's see if there is any......any at all.....political bias where that came from?

Link.

Did anyone see it?

All that and she still was in the job longer than Abort 

Its time wrote on Oct 21^st, 2015 at 7:13pm:

Why hasn't Gillard, Shorten and Thomson served time? Anyone that's not a rusted on knows they're crooks.

I can bet Keating slipped into a hot tube with Rivkin and a whole bunch of Thai rent boys.

President Elect, The Mechanic wrote on Oct 21^st, 2015 at 7:28pm:


No.  The content in what you posted is probably all correct.  It is the format, context, tone and emphasis which makes the author's real intent clear.

Rembering Julia Gillard

Probably the best PM of the last few decades.