Any Australian posters here want to add in? I was surprised to hear about Rudd resigning, I thought he was popular. After how controversial John Howard's run I'm surprised they may get back in so quickly.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hRDwPj5w2J9PiW2FUXjZNid742ewD9GH9PE80

Any Australian posters here want to add in? I was surprised to hear about Rudd resigning, I thought he was popular. After how controversial John Howard's run I'm surprised they may get back in so quickly.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hRDwPj5w2J9PiW2FUXjZNid742ewD9GH9PE80

Aussie here.

His popularity was dropping partly due to some taxes he wanted to install on the rich companies, and they were making it out to be real bad saying that your power, gas etc bills would rise. Which is a lot of baloney as these companies would still charge the customer more, but were using these taxes as an excuse.

But even with that Rudd was still better than the idiot in charge of the other party. To me Abbott thinks that all women should remain in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. One of the policies he wants to bring in is 6 months full paid maternity leave for women, but in all honestly that would deter some companie's especially small ones from hiring women that are still of child bearing age, or would even force some to put of staff because they wouldn't be able to afford it.

Thanks! So do you think this might stop the Conservatives from winning? Are you surprised the race is close?

How do you think Australians will feel about a female PM?

I'm sorry to make that sound so condescending. I know it's silly to ask one person about the opinions of countless people. I was just curious as I tend to get more insight from posters here than I would at a lot of message boards.

I guess taxes are the bogeyman just about everywhere. At least he had the guts to consider raising them. In the US what usually happens is the person in charge of a major role will say no taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes, and then the local areas end up getting their rates increased and are gouged, and local areas end up having huge cuts on road repair, schools, etc.

Edited June 24, 201015 yr by CarlD2

Kevin Rudd ousted as Australian PM

Jun 24, 2010 7:16 AM | By Sapa-AFP

Kevin Rudd was for years the darling of Australian politics before undergoing a decline as rapid as it was mysterious.

<span style="font-size:10.5pt;">Rudd, who stood down as prime minister on Thursday to avoid a humiliating defeat in a party ballot, came from humble beginnings to lead the Labor Party and oust long-time conservative leader John Howard by a landslide in 2007. The fluent Mandarin speaker promised closer engagement with Asia and wowed voters with a landmark apology to Australia's Aborigines for their treatment under white rule.

The assured, if bookish, leader unravelled Howard's harsh immigration policies and kept Australia recession-free throughout the financial crisis, something no other advanced economy achieved.

With the opposition in disarray, Rudd consistently topped opinion polls in an enduring love affair with the Australian public, until the ardour suddenly cooled just months ago.

"In a way it's gravity finally catching up with him but it's taken a very long time," crikey.com political writer Bernard Keane told AFP.

"It's a bit like the fall of the Roman Empire: the question isn't so much why did it fall but why did it last as long as it did?"

Rudd endured a tough childhood, forced to temporarily sleep in a car aged 11 when his family was evicted from their Queensland farm following his father's death in a road accident.

He said that experience shaped the views on social justice that led him to run for federal parliament, where he was elected in 1998 on his second attempt.

Before arriving in Canberra, he was a senior bureaucrat for the state Labor government in Queensland and had a lengthy career as a diplomat, including postings to Stockholm and Beijing.

Married with three children, his wife Therese is a millionaire businesswoman in her own right -- a fact that plays well with female voters.

Details of a drunken trip to a New York strip club in 2003 were also leaked to the media, although it backfired when Rudd's ratings rose with the shattering of his image as a "nerd".

In November 2007, he and Julia Gillard, who replaced him as prime minister after a party coup, together brought the Labor Party back to power in a landslide after 12 years in the political wilderness.

The start of Rudd's downfall can be traced back to December, when an attempt to pass vaunted emissions trading laws ended in embarrassing failure and a new opposition leader emerged, the pugnacious Tony Abbott.

An immediate drop in the polls was compounded by a botched home insulation scheme which resulted in workers' deaths and a series of house fires.

He then announced he had shelved plans for the carbon trading scheme aimed at slowing global warming, which he had branded the "greatest moral challenge of our generation," until 2013, a move that saw his public support plunge.

His popularity was then further savaged by a very public dust-up with the powerful mining industry over plans for a new tax on resources profits, a tax which ultimately led to his political demise as his poll numbers plummeted.

The 52-year-old showed a flash of his famous temper during one of his many appearances on national television, when he lambasted an interviewer for questioning his performance at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

He was frequently criticised over the steady flow of asylum boats approaching Australia's shores and also accused of failing to achieve better ties with China, despite booming resources trade.

But his government's 70 billion dollar (58 billion US) stimulus package can claim a large part of the credit for maintaining Australia's growth during the financial crisis, and spurring a strong recovery since.

But while he may have enjoyed popularity with the public for two heady years, he struggled to win favour among his parliamentary peers -- even those from his own party.

"Kevin Rudd has always been a very unpopular person in the parliament," former foreign minister Alexander Downer, who served under Liberal leader Howard, told Fairfax radio.

"Popularity is not about whether you're are Liberal or Labor, you don't like people just because they are Liberal or Labor."

"He was just not a person that people liked, because he was so self-centred and so self-interested."

http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article516892.ece/Kevin-Rudd-ousted-as-Australian-PM</span>

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704684604575381281674517158.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

CANBERRA—Angry mining companies, divided party ranks, sagging poll numbers, a looming election: The very forces that spurred a swift and surprising palace coup against Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd just eight weeks ago now imperil his successor, Julia Gillard.

Didn't she say a few days ago she wants to turn Australia into a republic after the Queen dies?

Election liveblog:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/election-2010-blog/story-fn59niix-1225907876218

Finally 17 days after the election we finally know what is happening.

The independants have gone 2 to the Labor party and one to the Coalition

Meaning that Julia Gillard is now officially the Prime Minister of Australia.

Are you happy or would you have preferred someone else?

Are you happy or would you have preferred someone else?

Oh yes I am happy.

Abbott had no idea about broadband, and his attitude about women could have taken Australia back to the stone age.

He had the attitude that seemed to be from the dark ages in that women should save themselves for marriage, but it was ok for men to have sex before marriage. Hmm and just who were these men meant to have sex with lol.

But in saying that it is JMHO.