For those of you playing at home, I will give a quick overview. (Word of warning: I recognise that I am biased, but I figure that I'm doing better than The Daily Telegraph, and I have no interest in being an apolitical journalist. Also, if you are not from Australia - the Liberals or National Liberal Party is the conservative party and Labor or the Australian Labor Party are the left wing representatives. Also, Australia's politics follow the Westminster system of voting for your local representative of a party based on what they are promising for your electorate, rather than for the leader.)
In November 2007, the Labor party won the federal election with Kevin Rudd at the helm. Rudd was an excellent public speaker, and seemed to be a brilliant alternative for the stale Howard Liberal government. Rudd spoke to the youth. He promised more for the people about the environment, about issues that people really cared for. It seemed to be a change for the best. However, it wasn't long before reports started coming out of Parliament House that Rudd was incredibly fond of the potential power that the title of Prime Minister afforded him. By all accounts, he was micro managing projects at an unprecedented level that led to backlogs of work in countless Departments. He had a massive turnover of staffers. He wasn't making decisions on issues such as climate change, carbon tax, education, health. While he was good at forging links with China during the Mining Boom, he was not the effective, personable leader that everyone had thought he would be. The ALP was divided.
In 2010, then-Deputy PM Julia Gillard challenged the leadership and won with the support of the party, but without the support of much of the nation who seemed to think she had "stolen" the position. Gillard called a snap election and Australia was left with a hung parliament - the ALP held on to the lead once the independent members had given their preferences. Despite the fractured nature of the new Parliament, Gillard was actually a great PM. She communicated effectively. She listened to people. She seemed genuine. She was liked by the staffers and by the members of Cabinet. She passed reforms in education (as a result of the Gonski report) and health (Google "NDIS"). She passed an enormous amount of legislation that directly affected a lot of people in Australia, and mostly for the better. Unfortunately, hers was a tumultuous period of leadership.
Gillard's time as PM could be used as a textbook example of sexism and misogyny. Members of the media made disparaging comments about her figure, her clothes, her voice, her hair (but very rarely about her policies), her relationship with her partner Tim, her sexuality. On and on and on. "Shock Jock" radio DJ and all-round asshole Alan Jones commented that her father had "died of shame" at a Liberal function - as if that would be appropriate to say about anyone, let alone a serving PM. Jones also insisted on calling and referring to her as "Julia", when he had referred to previous leaders as "Prime Minister Rudd", "Prime Minister Howard", and so on. To her credit, Gillard was amazing. She kept her head held high and did not comment on much of the vitriol that was hurled at her for no good reason. In 2012 she gave a phenomenal speech in Parliament, labelling Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott a misogynist, bringing up countless examples of when he had either commented on her womanhood, or supported others in their disparaging views of women but then suggested that then-Speaker Peter Slipper be sacked from office because of his own misogynistic comments. It was one of the best political speeches I have ever seen, and rang true of the way in which women are still viewed in this country. Gillard was not a perfect PM. No one is. But she fought hard and was successful, even when confronted with information that had been fed to the media from members of her own party. Every time she brought up issues such as abortion laws or the roles of women, she was accused of playing the "gender card", as if she could have done anything else. In 2013, Australia was ranked 24th in the Gender Gap Index, which only shows how much work still needs to be done. Australian people didn't have faith in her because she was trying to do a man's job, even though she was better at it than many of her male counterparts.
Gillard's brilliant misogyny speech.
Earlier this year, the leadership problem surfaced once again. Rudd wanted to challenge the leadership in an election year, to claim back the title he rightfully saw as his own. He challenged, and won. The public perception of Gillard was at an all-time low, thanks to some well-placed PR showing Rudd in a good light and new negative stories about Gillard surfacing every day. It was horrendous. Gillard was liked by her staffers and her party, but hated by the public. And with Rudd and Abbott perpetuating the myth of personality politics, she didn't stand a chance. Rudd ousted Gillard, called the election when he felt like it, and lost by a landslide to the Liberal government handled by Tony Abbott (yes, the one labelled a misogynist by Gillard only a year ago). Rudd's losing speech sounded more like a winning speech: he'd lost the election, but he'd lost it as leader, which is all he'd really wanted.
Now, we've got the Liberal government that is threatening to lower penalty rates, privatise the tertiary education HECS debt (which would make paying the debt back for many people almost unattainable, myself included), and gives select information about refugees and asylum seekers in an hour-long statement once a week. The current Liberal party cares about women, but only really when they're having babies. Abbott is a terrible public speaker and can't think on his feet, so I'm wondering how long he is going to last as leader, or how long before he puts his foot in it on an international scale.
I am just so angry and so jaded. For the first time in my voting life, I didn't know who to vote for and I hate that my choice was taken away by people perpetuating the myth of personality politics and playing the game, rather than fighting for what is best for the country. Both Rudd and Abbott were parading their families around for press coverage - I don't care about Rudd's wife's weight loss, or about Abbott's daughters. This is the guy who told a magazine that he'd more or less made a virginity pledge with his daughters - which is fine, but don't tell the whole world about it and let your daughters be known by that. I just get frustrated that while the rest of the world is moving forward, Australia seems to have stagnated and likes the view of the White Male In Charge. I feel neglected as a young woman in this country, and I can't see a way for the tangled web of our current political situation to be unravelled.
