This article is a really interesting look at the role sexism plays in the criticisms leveled at Gillard and at all female politicians. It includes comments from a number of politicians themselves about the sexism they’ve faced. Well worth reading.
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#Gillard #PM #Australian politics
Labor has already offered to enact the Malaysia Solution and Nauru, in tandem. It has made adjustments to the way the Malaysia Solution would operate in a bid to accommodate concerns. It has even suggested an independent bipartisan inquiry into TPVs, and if that inquiry found TPVs work Labor would look at supporting their introduction.
Gillard said yesterday that it was regrettable that the Opposition Leader ruled out a compromise on the weekend.
“I think it is a time where people are looking to us to put the politics to one side,” she said
Interesting to see some progression with this issue, perhaps we may eventually see a calming of Australia’s refugee fears - and the establishment of some constructive policies.
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#refugee #australia #government #asylum seekers #gillard
This article needs to be reduced down to a powdered form, then dissolved into the water supply so that everyone in this country can absorb and understand its contents
Some quotes that struck me:
The truth is, Rudd was impossible to work with. He regularly treated his staff, public servants and backbenchers with rudeness and contempt. He was vindictive, intervening to deny people appointments or preselections, often based on grudges that went back years.
He made crushing demands on his staff, and when they laboured through the night to meet those demands, they received no thanks, and often the work was not used. People who dared stand up to him were put in “the freezer” and not consulted or spoken to for months. The prodigious loyalty of his staff to him was mostly not repaid. He put them down behind their backs. He seemed to feel that everyone was always letting him down. In meetings, as I saw, he could emanate a kind of icy rage that was as mysterious as it was disturbing…
I have no idea of the precise moment at which [Gillard] decided to challenge Rudd, but I am certain that she had been as loyal a deputy as he was likely to get. Through the hard months of early 2010, she had long talks with him to keep him on track. Of all the whisperings I heard against Rudd until the time I left Canberra in April 2010, none involved her. In fact, she protected him. As one of her advisers said, they were ”joined at the hip”.
But she also knew what Rudd was like. In mid-2010, I imagine, she saw him spinning out, saw the polls, saw an election approaching, believed that in this climate his capacity for chaos was likely to grow rather than diminish. This was not about ambition. Sure she might have wanted to be prime minister one day, but not under these circumstances, not with the consequences that were bound to follow. But in politics you don’t get to pick your moment, it picks you. Hers came. She took it.
Bringing this back because the current discussion of Kevin Rudd in the media makes it relevant again.
Precisely why the media needs to let go.
Leadership is more than popularity, it’s being able to interface with your fellow workers, and recognising that everyone has limits.
It also helps if you remember that political work is more than catchy slogans and big gestures.
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#this #leadership #look it up #australian politics #kevin rudd #gillard
BETTING agencies have hopped onto the political chaos in Canberra and have given current Prime Minister Julia Gillard an outside chance at $6.00 to retain the top job, while Kevin Rudd is the favourite at $1.10
Guess we’ll see what consequences this has for the election.
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#auspol #politics #australia #prime minister #rudd #gillard #spillover
