Julia Gillard: Australia gets a Barry girl in charge. Tidy.

[editor]

Who would have thought that a girl from Barry would go so far?! The last foreign PM in Australia was a Welshman too.

Gillard became the Leader of the Australian Labor Party at the 2010 Australian Labor Party leadership election on 24 June 2010 and was sworn in as prime minister later that day. She had previously served as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia under Kevin Rudd. On 11 December 2007, she became the first woman in Australia's history to assume the prime ministerial role when she was the acting prime minister while Rudd attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali.

Gillard is also the first foreign-born prime minister since Billy Hughes, who served from 1915 to 1923, and Australia's first prime minister who has never married.

Gillard was born in 1961 in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. Her parents, John and Moira, live in Pasadena, South Australia.

After Gillard suffered from bronchopneumonia as a child, her parents were advised it would aid her recovery to live in a warmer climate. The family chose to migrate to Australia in 1966, settling in Adelaide.

 

[editor]

Interesting story too:

It has been an amazing journey. Gillard was born to a working class family in September 1961. Her father, John, was one of seven children, and worked as a policeman and clerk. He passed his 11-plus but his family could not afford to let him go to grammar school. Her mother, Moira, was a civilian worker at the police station.

It was a political family with John Gillard a familiar figure at Labour meetings and rallies. Gillard cites Nye Bevan, the architect of the NHS, as a key influence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/24/julia-gillard-ten-pound-pom-prime-minister-australia

 

[kyser_soze]

She's a craven witch who'll bend over and take it from the mining industry first chance she gets. Still, she's probably got more balls than Rudd.

 

[butchersapron]

She's already caved into the mining industry - placed there by right wing union bosses and the aforementioned industry.

 

[Gromit]

She's a craven witch who'll bend over and take it from the mining industry first chance she gets. Still, she's probably got more balls than Rudd.

Nah she'll close all the mines, try to break the unions, propose a poll tax and start a war with Argentina.

Mark my words. Women are all the same.

 

[kyser_soze]

Being a ginge and Welsh, I wonder if she'll fall over in the sea?

 

[editor]

Being a ginge and Welsh, I wonder if she'll fall over in the sea?

 

[London_Calling]

John and Moira asked the doctors how they could make sure she got better."

They recommended the family leave Wales

 

[1927]

She's a Barry girl so I'm very surprised she never had children, in Barry if you haven't had atleast 2 kids by the time you're 15 everyone has you down as a lesbian.

 

[Gromit]

She left when she was 5.

I bet she considers herself Australian rather than Welsh.

 

[krtek a houby]

She left when she was 5.

I bet she considers herself Australian rather than Welsh.

It's not where you're from, it's where you're at. So they say, like

 

[editor]

I bet she considers herself Australian rather than Welsh.

You're a little bit on the wrong side there.

JON FAINE: Does your family have a personal military history?

JULIA GILLARD: We do. My grandfather, my mother’s father was in World War I. I never knew him, Jon. We’re Welsh....

JON FAINE: Are you the first person, then to be Acting Prime Minster, Deputy Prime Minister of such high office to have been born overseas?

JULIA GILLARD: I’m not sure about that. I think I am the first Deputy Prime Minister to have been born overseas. In terms of other leadership positions in the government, you know, the Senate or Deputy Senate Leader, I’m not sure about the past history, but interestingly this leadership team, Kevin Rudd of course from Queensland, I was born in Wales, Chris Evans is also Welsh, and Stephen Conroy is an import too.

JON FAINE: From England.

JULIA GILLARD: Yes. So I often joke with them that there are probably more Welsh people in the leadership of this nation than there are in any other nation on earth including Wales. And I don’t think any of us sing. Obviously we’re all refuges, we were sent out here because of a poor gene pool or something but I’ve never heard Chris Evans sing and I certainly don’t sing.

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Ministers/Gillard/Media/Transcripts/Pages/Article_090428_105256.aspx

The Welsh Labour leader Nye Bevan is one of her political heroes too.

 

[butchersapron]

You can easily find her saying the exact opposite as well though.

 

[editor]

You can easily find her saying the exact opposite as well though.

I'm really not that bothered, but I've yet to see her try to disown the fact that she was born in Wales to Welsh parents - and that makes her pretty much Welsh by anyone's reckoning.

She seems to have overcome a few obstacles to get the job in Oz:

In the land of cold beer and untrammelled misogyny, this is about the worst kind of human being possible.

One Right-wing senator has even described her as ‘deliberately barren’, implying that a woman is little more than a life support system to an ovary and somehow not fit for political office.

Gillard’s response was to accuse him of insulting all Australian women and force him to make a grovelling apology.

Even worse, in the eyes of Australian manhood the new premier — who replaced Kevin Rudd after she challenged his leadership this week — is not even a proper Aussie.

(Her family, they will tell you, weren’t even in the country when Don Bradman was in his pomp.)

Born in 1961 in the Vale of Glamorgan, Gillard is the daughter of a Welsh miner.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...res-Sheila-running-Oz-Shes-feminist--Pom.html

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

She's a craven witch who'll bend over and take it from the mining industry first chance she gets. Still, she's probably got more balls than Rudd.

She mentioned mining in her first speech last night. She's bending over already.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Shame she moved there when she was so young and lost her accent, because her accent now is awful

 

[Proper Tidy]

What's all this Australian mining business about then?

 

[Fedayn]

She's a craven witch who'll bend over and take it from the mining industry first chance she gets. Still, she's probably got more balls than Rudd.

And the Welsh immigrant has already promised to limit immigration.... She's not been there a week and the race card is duly dealt.... Ooohh where's that ladder so I can pull it up after me .... tidy....

 

[gabi]

So, you're proud that a Welshperson is PM of Australia?

That's a fucking high bar you've got there

 

[London_Calling]

^ Yep, I too support all the decisions my parents ever made and incorporate them into decisions I make now, especially the ones they made on health grounds when I was 5 years old.

Fedayn - it must be a long way up there on that horse.

 

[Fedayn]

Fedayn - it must be a long way up there on that horse.

You don't do irony then? Here we have a thread that says whoopee the new PM of Australia is 'Welsh' as if that's anything to 'celebrate'?! I'm just wondering if the Welsh are still celebrating given she's already got her hypocrisy in early... Must make them so proud, aaaahh but she's not just any anti-immigrant, she's a Welsh anti-immigrant.....

 

[editor]

You don't do irony then? Here we have a thread that says whoopee the new PM of Australia is 'Welsh' as if that's anything to 'celebrate'?! I'm just wondering if the Welsh are still celebrating given she's already got her hypocrisy in early... Must make them so proud, aaaahh but she's not just any anti-immigrant, she's a Welsh anti-immigrant.....

A woman from a working class family from the shithole that is Barry in south Wales managed to overcome Australia's built in misogyny and get the top job.

Ever been to Barry? If you had, you'd realise it's a bit of an achievement.

Perhaps if you posted up what your parents were doing when you were five years old, we could check that there's no "hypocrisy" related to your current beliefs too

 

[skyscraper101]

Well done to her.

It took me by surprise when I saw the news though. Rudd seemed a likeable kind of PM as far a politicians go. I hadn't heard about the mining debarcle that had played such a big part in his ousting though.

Fair play to Gillard for getting the top job though.

 

[kyser_soze]

No fair play involved. She found the longest knife possible and stabbed Rudd in the back with it.

The main thing that got Rudd kicked out was bottling it on the climate change legislation, but he's hugely unliked by his own party.

 

[Fedayn]

A woman from a working class family from the shithole that is Barry in south Wales managed to overcome Australia's built in misogyny and get the top job.

Ever been to Barry? If you had, you'd realise it's a bit of an achievement.

Perhaps if you posted up what your parents were doing when you were five years old, we could check that there's no "hypocrisy" related to your current beliefs too

What have my parents got to do with anything? My mum was an office clerk my dad was a fireman. There you go.... Fill your boots....

Oooohh she's Welsh she's got a good job.... how dull. As dull as ooooh she's English she's got a good job.... She got a good job, by shafting people, rolling over to big business and right-wing union leaders.... Don't it make you proud....

It's hilarious, a supposedly liberal Welsh bloke whooping it up cos someone Welsh got a job then proceeded to be the same as everyone else who gets to the top of the pile... How marvellous.....

Wouldn't it be something to be proud of if a working-class Welsh woman started to tackle the big mining interests instead of roling over within the week, didn't play the immigrant/race card within a week? That I agree would be well worth celebrating. This however.....

 

[London_Calling]

You hear that noise, Fedayn ?


It's the *point* going over your head at about 30,000 feet.

 

[editor]

It's hilarious, a supposedly liberal Welsh bloke whooping it up cos someone Welsh got a job then proceeded to be the same as everyone else who gets to the top of the pile... How marvellous.....

"Whooping it up"?

 

[butchersapron]

You hear that noise, Fedayn ?


It's the *point* going over your head at about 30,000 feet.

Explain the point then.

 

[Fedayn]

You hear that noise, Fedayn ?


It's the *point* going over your head at about 30,000 feet.

Really? Yes her parents moved not her? Still doesn't get away from one of the points I was referring to.

 

[Fedayn]

"Whooping it up"?

Yeah ok, a bit overegged, is being happy at/with or mildly 'celebrating' a tad better?