Julia Gillard won't just win the next election, she will increase Labor's majority.

Kevin Rudd was Labor's biggest problem, not the policies his government has enacted, not the personnel in his parliamentary team. The published polls and the internal party polling all showed Rudd had become a drag on Labor's vote.

It is a big call to depose a first-term prime minister, but it was the right thing for Gillard to do.

We all knew even if Rudd won the next election he wasn't going to last very long in the aftermath. At least this way Gillard is letting the Australian people decide who they want to run the country after the election - her or Tony Abbott.

Of course the first few weeks of Gillard's prime ministership are going to be critical to how she performs at the next election.

Lindsay Tanner's planned retirement is a major blow. If Gillard stumbles, my prediction stumbles with her. She needs a good start to move on from the chaos of recent days.

Judging by her first speech as PM and her first question time performance, Gillard has what it takes to make Abbott look shrill when he attacks her.

Abbott's poor personal ratings might not have mattered when the prime minister was more unpopular. But if voters give Gillard a chance, such a honeymoon will turn attention back on to Abbott. That will flow on to attention to his policies, his team, and whether the Liberals have learnt the lessons of Howard's defeat. Voters don't like to admit they were wrong and that is what they would be doing by ousting Labor after just one term.

With Rudd at the helm voters were seriously considering it; with Gillard they might decide to give Australia's first female PM the time she needs to succeed or fail on her own terms.

Abbott wants to remind voters that it is the same failed government with a different leader. That argument only works if voters agree that Labor has been a failure. Yes they have had their problems, major problems, including with policy delivery.

But the three biggest problems with Rudd's first term were his autocratic style, his sudden unpopularity and his unwillingness to consult.

All three are now gone, so watch out Tony Abbott, I say.

thank goodness those massive deficits saved us from the GFC

thy - i pretty much agree with that article. Rudd was a gonner.

julie is going to be MUCH harder to beat. if for no other reason than she is a woman.
the libs may have to install bishop or another woman after the election.

women will vote for gillard, some men will cause she is the first woman PM.
same as obama, he got LOTS of votes cause he is black.

If the heat is too much for Gillard she isn't up to it.
Why should she get special treatment, she wants to be prime minister, she needs to cut it. Australians don't want a wimp for a prime minister, and they won't take kindly to some anti-male feminista either - a lot of women don't like that sort of rubbish, and men definitely do not.
As Gillard said to Abbott yesterday, in her words: "game on". Ok then, she needs to be able take the same stuff. I have no pity for her. She did in the previous prime minister so she could step up to the wicket. Better be able to take the fast bowling.

Gillard better know.
Don't vote for commies.

game on.

Thanks thy
from,  lady vegitdynamite....lol  

By: bogarde73

Yesterday (3:44 pm)

     Re:How demeaning to womanhood
     
yes it is, I flirt occasionally with vegie and quite often with danger.

TONY Abbott saved us from the flawed ETS and he has now saved Australia from Kevin Rudd. To be able to get the prime minister's scalp from opposition is a testament to brilliant strategy and leadership. Kevin Rudd was tested and found wanting thanks to the actions of the Opposition Leader.


It Turnbull was still the opposition Leader, Rudd would still be PM.

It was Tone (not the carrot-top Jezabel) who  KOed Kevvie. Good one.