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Speaking of not believing it ...


JonS

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Is she married? Seriously - I thought she was single (ISTR her being referred to as Ms Gillard, rather than Mrs Gillard)?

Not unlike the title of Mr., Ms. indicates nothing more than the gender of the individual. Gender equality and all that, ya know.

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A bit harsh on poor Ruddy, I don't think people will respond well to the guy they elected being replaced with a left faction female who hasn't been doing a much better job recently either. Having said that we will probably have a true left vs right matchup at election time instead of a centre right leader vs a middle right leader.

Rudd must have trod on a lot of toes for it to come to this.

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Not unlike the title of Mr., Ms. indicates nothing more than the gender of the individual. Gender equality and all that, ya know.

Fair point, you got me (even though I was right :) )

Wait. According to Wiki, what you say is the case in North America, but in the colonies it's not quite so clear cut. Cultural differences and all that, ya know. :)

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OK, I get it. So they elected Jodie Foster to be their PM?

Not quite right. As for the elected part... there was no ballot taken at the Labor Party leadership meeting because Rudd threw in the towel when he knew he didn't have the numbers. So Gillard becomes Prime Minister with the Australian public having absolutely no say in who should lead the country. It's a somewhat different system to what you're used to in the United States!

Regards

KR

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(snip)...So Gillard becomes Prime Minister with the Australian public having absolutely no say in who should lead the country. It's a somewhat different system to what you're used to in the United States!...(snip)

Given the power of lobbies and special interests to sway (or even throw) elections in the USA now, I'm not so sure we are any different at all...

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So Gillard becomes Prime Minister with the Australian public having absolutely no say in who should lead the country. It's a somewhat different system to what you're used to in the United States!

Not quite as different as you seem to be implying. In the Australian system, doesn't the electorate effectively choose the ruling party knowing that the leader of that party will be PM? In which case, the public has some say in the matter, however indirect.

In the US, although we vote for specific individuals, those individuals come from a pool pre-selected by powerful interests. Unless a candidate goes cap in hand to those interests promising them whatever they want, he/she will be pretty much dead in the water at election time.

Michael

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Not quite right. As for the elected part... there was no ballot taken at the Labor Party leadership meeting because Rudd threw in the towel when he knew he didn't have the numbers. So Gillard becomes Prime Minister with the Australian public having absolutely no say in who should lead the country. It's a somewhat different system to what you're used to in the United States!

Regards

KR

I think the same thing happened here in Canada, although it was long ago at a time when I wasn't all that interested in politics (I'm still not, actually). Kim Campbell was our one and only female PM, but that only lasted a matter of days.

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Not quite as different as you seem to be implying. In the Australian system, doesn't the electorate effectively choose the ruling party knowing that the leader of that party will be PM? In which case, the public has some say in the matter, however indirect.

Michael

The public votes for the party they want in office. The party votes for who they want as a leader and they can change that leader pretty much at any time (bait and switch?). So, the public can either vote for the party or not vote at all. I think it's a common feeling that we don't really have a say in who leads the country. I imagine that's a similar story in Oz.

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