The Julia Factor

Australia has its first female Prime Minister, and the public opinions are split down the middle.



On the surface, it appears that Australian politics has crossed a milestone by inducting a woman into the top position. But many believe that such an important event should have taken place through a proper democratic process, rather than installation by default.

By the end of the day, these opinions have evolved into somewhat of a distrust and uneasiness towards Julia Gillard, saying that she basically betrayed Kevin Rudd and took advantage of his sinking popularity to step up to the job herself. And while that may represent a certain amount of truth, it certainly does not represent the larger picture of the situation.

I don't claim to know much about Australian politics (or any politics for that matter, that does not involve bitching about UMNO), but here's what I gather from these 2 days of media madcap:

1) Former PM Kevin Rudd loses popularity among the people.
2) Thus, former PM Kevin Rudd, loses popularity among party members.
3) Former PM Kevin Rudd resigned, and Julia Gillard as deputy PM, rightfully replaced him.
4) Socceroos is out of the World Cup, but went with a glorified win against Serbia.


In full glory, indeed.

Mitch raised a very good point when he said that the public should be voting for which government they want to represent them, rather than who their leaders are. Because ultimately, the bulk of the socio-economic decisions will be made by the members of the parties, so we ought to be thinking about whether we want a Labor or Liberal governance, not whether we want our First Lady Julia or a Speedos-loving Abbott.


Aussie pride.

Yet, there's always the issue of public relations - both at home and on international grounds. Politics is something like 30% policies and 70% media relations, so it does warrant some consideration into who we want to be the leader, and therefore the face of Australia, right?

Julia Gillard has more charm and charisma than Rudd and Abbott put together, twice-fold. She is intelligent and articulate, and exudes the sort of level-headed confidence which I personally believe, are important qualities of a great leader. The fact that she is female should be secondary to our opinions, but it isn't. Because we still live in a world where a female Prime Minister is a novelty, and everyone is waiting to play the gender card on every step or misstep that she makes.

Like now, for instance. Overnight, she went from becoming everyone's favourite female politician, to a "bitchy backstabber", who pulled the rug from under Ruddy's feet while he was down. The media and public abused her for taking advantage of poor Ruddy, even though they were the very same people who dismissed Rudd's administration in the first place.

I wonder if the media and people would be as unforgiving if it was a male deputy PM instead. At the very least, 'bitchy' won't be used to describe him. -.-

..


I've always liked Julia Gillard too. To me, she's the only person keeping Rudd and the Labor party on their toes, even though I don't necessarily agree with the policies and decisions that they've made over the past couple of years.

While others think that what she's done was sneaky and uncalled for, I believe that the woman is smart and gutsy enough to make an informed and calculated decision, knowing full well that she's to expect a massive public backlash and risking her reputation as the 'media darling' of the Labor party.



And, maybe that's just what Australia needs right now. You've had Rudd who's been so busy trying to please everyone and their mums that he's repeatedly change his mind over the same issues time and time again, rather than taking a stand on what he (or at least his party) believes in. A politician or leader shouldn't strive to be liked; he/she should strive to be respected, which I think is the biggest problem in politics everywhere these days. Clearly the people has voted you into power, therefore, start using them. Command authority as you see fit, and if the people are unsatisfied with the results then they can always vote for somebody else.

What Julia did was grabbed the popularity contest by its balls and went ahead with what she feels is to the best interest for both for herself and her party. It's just like everything else - survival of the fittest. The best person for the job. Sentiments and politeness have no place in politics.

xx

To be fair, being a democratic country and society, such issues require proper procedures and protocols in place, lest we descent into anarchy*. And we all respect that process; but really, the core of the matter is that Rudd was made to resign because he was incompetent, and the decision was clearly a calculated one because the next in line was everything that Rudd failed to deliver and some more.

*I love that phrase, I've been itching to use it in a sentence ever since Sheldon Cooper brought it to light in reference to ignoring phone calls and voice messages.

She may or may not have a hand in speeding up the process, we'll never know. But really what's the big loss here? They've replaced one bad Labor leader with a much better one. If anything, it's probably one of the best decisions that the party has made over the past 4 years, if they want to see a glimmer of hope in winning the next election.

And that's just it - politics are about people with power, seeking to be in power. Along the way they make promises to the people to improve their lives, some worthy and some unfortunately empty, but more often that not, it keeps the country running and the people contented. At least, contented enough to not descent into anarchy.


And Sheldon wouldn't have it otherwise.

So balls up everybody. At least your government isn't buying secondhand submarines that can't submerge, or spending billions of taxpayers money on aged armored vehicles under the impression that they are military tanks. Such are the prodigious minds that we call our leaders in dear ol' Malaysia.


xx
Hsin