Key figures: Julia Gillard (incoming prime minister), Kevin Rudd (outgoing prime minister), Wayne Swan (deputy leader and treasurer)
Summary
On June 24, 2010, Julia Gillard became the 27th prime minister of Australia and the first woman to hold the office in the nation’s history. Gillard, who had served as deputy prime minister under Kevin Rudd, ascended to the leadership after a rapid internal challenge within the governing Australian Labor Party. On the evening of June 23, 2010, amid declining opinion polls and party disquiet over the government’s handling of climate policy, a proposed mining tax, and program implementation, Gillard informed Rudd that she would contest the party leadership. Facing insufficient support to survive a ballot, Rudd withdrew, and Gillard was elected Labor leader unopposed on the morning of June 24. She was sworn in as prime minister that day, with Wayne Swan as her deputy.
Born in Barry, Wales, in 1961, Gillard emigrated with her family to Adelaide, South Australia, as a child. She entered federal parliament in 1998 as the member for the Victorian seat of Lalor and rose through Labor’s ranks to the deputy leadership. Within weeks of taking office she called a federal election for August 21, 2010, which produced a hung parliament; Gillard subsequently formed a minority government with the support of independents and the Australian Greens, and she remained prime minister until June 2013.
Significance
Gillard’s elevation was a milestone in Australian political history, breaking a gender barrier that had stood since Federation in 1901. Her tenure placed a woman at the head of government in one of the world’s established parliamentary democracies at a time when female national leaders remained comparatively rare.
The manner of her rise — an unexpected intra-party leadership change that removed a first-term prime minister who had won a decisive election in 2007 — also became a defining feature of a turbulent period in Australian federal politics, characterised by leadership instability within both major parties. Gillard’s government nonetheless enacted significant legislation, including a national carbon pricing scheme and reforms to education and disability support. In October 2012 she delivered a parliamentary speech on sexism and misogyny that drew international attention and became one of the most widely circulated moments of her prime ministership.