Why Rudd had to go!

I personally don't think that Rudd was dealt with harshly by his party.

He got what he deserved because he had forgotten that as PM it is not incumbent upon him to tell others to jump and for them to respond "How high?", but rather to lead a team. He clearly didn't do that. And the team eventually revolted.

When asked by my keenly observant 16 year old who said "I don't understand why they got rid of Rudd, why did they do that?"

My reply was simple.

"He had forgotten that he was so supposed to work with people and just chose to do what he liked." I am glad that we live in a democracy that calls this sort of behaviour out.

Just Julia

I am inclined to think that Julia Gillard is not the ambitious vixen that some would try to caricature as.

She seems to me to have been about as open as you can be about her desire to lead the nation, and also as reluctant as you must be to pursue this with the sort of ferocity that many of her male counterparts would only too happily indulge in.

The absolute and utter hypocrisy of much of what transpired as comment yesterday on all sides of politics, almost infuriating if not so utterly transparent and laughable.

I mean, who could fail to be aghast at the audacity of the mad monk standing up there lecturing the Labor Party about how no leader should be treated as Rudd was by the bovver boyz of his own party.

I mean if he wanted to be taken seriously he should at least have been made to look Malcolm Turnbull in the eye while he was saying this.

Having worked for over thirty years in an institution (the Anglican Church) which is even more male-dominated than the Parliament, I hope for our country what I believe is true also for the Church. And that is, that female leadership will be different in style from all-male leadership.

There are those who find this laughable, who tend to suggest that women are more ruthless than men and only get into power by being more power-driven than their male counterparts (some of those voices were heard yesterday).

In my experience the proponents of this are very often men who have been rolled by strong women who are not prepared to be patronised.

What seems to be truer, is that women rather value and encourage certain loyalties rather than others. They are not so driven by the need to 'win' so much as to 'succeed'. This might seem a subtle, even nuanced, difference. But it is rather important.

Winning is rather short-term, where success is a much more wholistic idea.

I think Ms Gillard's language indicated that she is aiming to succeed rather to win. Kev's problem (and I suspect Abbot's) is that they have to win

Same, same but different

There are lots of candidates for catchy - but cliched - titles for blogs about the change in Liberal leadership.
Methinks he protests too much is one. His need to convince the legendary 'battlers' that he is not a 'silver tail' was obviously uppermost in some strategists minds. I don't think he was very convincing but time will tell.
Turn Bull into reality could be another one. Again we will wait and see.

Should we worry too much that he is rich? In one way this is a sign that this is a man who knows how to achieve, and surely we want successful people in key leadership positions.
Any way I suspect in six weeks all this will be academic, he will either be chewing it up or stuffing it up. I suspect the former, and the personal critique will then all be a bit beside the point.
Certainly will be interesting
Personally, I was in agreement with Turnbull, that it was disappointing to see that the one of the first comments the PM made was that the Republic would now be a key issue.
This is such a political ploy, aimed at agitating the Liberal Party from within, about what is essentially a minor issue.
For heaven's sake a strong opposition is a good thing(here for example). On the other hand it was good to see an encouragement from Rudd to identify key bi-partisan issues. As these troubled times go on it is clear that there are more and more issues that are just important and not just or substantially political.
I could and would name the River, education, the intervention, the War and health as just some. of these