Historical change in Australian politics: first female prime minister

du0012

source: http://www.kdictionary.com
author:Tommy Du

A lot of people's perception of politics is boring topic. But today we have a historical moment in Australian politics. We have a first ever female prime minister in Australian history today.

To start this story, I would like to give you some background or history about Australian politics. The current in-power government is labour government. Yesterday our prime minister was Kevin Rudd. In 2006, he challenged the then labour party leader Kim Beazley for a party re-election for new party leader and he won. At that time, John Howard was the prime minister for the 3 third term ( each term has 3 years). John Howard was the liberal party leader. In November, 2007 Australia had an federal election. Australian voted for which party to be in power. Normally the party leader becomes prime minister. Kevin Rudd leaded the party to victory. It was a great victory for labour party. John Howard even lost his parliament seat, which was very embarrassing. He had no choice but retired. He is the longest serving prime minister in Australian history.

Kevin Rudd was so popular until 3 months ago. His satisfactory rate has dropped significantly. There are a lot of factors contribute to that. The main one is the ETS(Emission Trading Scheme) that has been scraped. It was one of Kevin Rudd's big election promises. But he dumped it a few moths ago. The Education Evolution Program is apparently another flop. I remember the government spent a lot of money to encourage Australian students to learn Asian languages like Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese etc. But student's enrolment was far less than expected. Also the Insulation Scheme is another big failure. During last year's GFC(global financial crisis), in order to boost the economics, the government offered free insulation for old houses. Actually I benefit from it as well because they came to do insulation for my unit for free. My insulation was worth about $1000. The cause of the flop was cause by some teenager got skilled in the fire when they were doing the insulation. The program eventually stopped. Business owners asked the government for compensation, which may cause more than 100 million dollars, due to the left over stocks. As a result, people's comments for Kevin Rudd is: promise too much and has done little. Another killer for Kevin Rudd is the super tax the government introduces recently. It causes so much debate between the government and mining companies. Because of this new policy, the share market has shrunk more than 300 points. The debate is still going on.

Australia is going to have another federal election for the new government in November. The labour party feels that if they don't change the leader, they may lose the election and become only the second one-term federal government in Australian history. Julia Gilla was the deputy prime minister in Rudd government. She has a lot of support from the party members. So she stepped up and challenged Kevin Rudd, the same as what Kevin Rudd did in 2006. Kevin Rudd pulled out and Julia Gilla becomes the party leader and Australian first female prime minister. I remember the other day I asked two young Australian girls what do they think about Julia Gilla. Rather than taking about her policies and performance, they said she has the biggest earlobe they've ever seen. How funny was that.Personally I don't like her very much. I feel she is a bit phoney. Well, actually most politicians are very phoney. I heard she kept saying she doesn't want the top job for many times but who knows what was in her mind.

Today I asked work mates :"Are you ready to have a female prime minister?". To my surprise, they said they are quite happy with Julia Gilla. If you asked me who do I vote for as prime minister, I still prefer Kevin Rudd because: 1. his government paid by installation bill 2. He speaks Mandarin. He used to be a diplomat in Beijing.

Today I am fortunate enough to witness the historical moment in Australian history. Australian polices is not boring anymore.