I’m a bit cross that I was OS last month when Julia Gillard staged a leadership coup on Kevin 07 becoming Australia’s first female Prime Minister. Usually I eat that sort of stuff up. Love it. Love politics, hate Kevin Rudd–oh how I would have loved to have been here in Oz when it was all unfurling.
So I did the next best thing. I bolted up the stairs to use the hotel’s internet. But there were children on there checking their Facebook page or playing Animal Farm or something totally unimportant in the moment of my news deprived crisis. So after pidgin Italian and lots of acting I explained that the Australia President (Prime Minister wasn’t floating) had been usurped and I need to know about it now, so the manager kicked the kids off the computer.
So there I was scouring the news sites and you know what? I was distinctly underwhelmed. Sure I found items on our new PM, there was even a video on Kevin Rudd’s farewell (like I was going to waste valuable download time listening to that), but where was the build up, the mystery, the intrigue? Well I couldn’t find it and I’m usually good at that. So I gave up and started plaguing random Australians who had just arrived in the country but they weren’t able to help either. I was flummoxed.
Anyway this is my theory. Every dog has its day. And Kevin Rudd had his. Karma’s a bitch and it comes back to get nasty little bullies who treat people poorly. Great big mining companies also come to get nasty little PM’s who are on power trips. The electorate also comes to get egomaniacs who don’t answer questions without burying the response in weasel words. And President Obama just didn’t come at all.
From what I can gather the whole thing was masterminded by Bill Shorten. Does that name sound familiar? He’s another gem delivered to us by Sunrise, the TV show that gave us Kevin Rudd. He was the mining union rep during the Beaconsfield Mine disaster. He’s a politician now. How unusual–a career union man becoming a Labor politician.
He’s got a new woman now. Got rid of his old one. The new one’s got history–she’s the Governor General’s daughter. Sounds like a plot from Days of our Lives.
So anyway I gave up my internet trawl. I decided to ask my mother when I got home. Gave CNN another go and then it delivered gold. A 10-second clip of Australia’s new PM–Julia GILLIARD. I guess it was a bit too much to get her name right too. Image
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