Aint, I do not think Labor dump Rudd because he was a man. While there have plenty of reference to Gillard being our first female Prime Minister. Feminist writers stress she is a politician first and a woman second.
Indeed Gillard has a likable blokey quality that makes her more mate than madam
And this is part of her broad appeal that makes her electable in her own right.

Most of the party had tired of Rudd a bit of a nerd,who spoke Chinese well but could not communicate to working class Australians.

Gillard lives in a working class suburb. She has no husband although she has partner, She has no children , deliberately barren , as some say. She can not cook so will never be a typical house wife. She is strong like Margaret Thatcher. The only one to cry was Kevin Rudd.

I think she was voted in as she is so unlike the Conservative Catholic Opposition Leader.

Aus, what I've read is that Mr. Rudd has vacillated over some of the things he promised to do--education, environment, treatment of the Maori's, taxing the mining companies, and so on. Added to this is the closing paragraph from the New York Times:



Are these things true?

Lizabeth. It is true that Kevin Rudd has been painted as
This is partly true as it would be of most leaders he was arongant and work his staff long hours. However he was our most popular politician for two years getting rid of 11 years of Conservative power.

Some of his programs did not work and he was forced to backflip.
Because he gave out fee insulations and school halls to keep people employed some of thee were not successful with untrained staff doing the work at too higher a cost , this led to some problems. With the Miners he wanted to put a 40% tax on theirr super profits. They opposed this with plenty of money ran a successful advertising campaign against the tax. These were losing votes so Labor was forced to make a deal with the miners. The New Prime Minister has agree to negotiate something that Rudd could not do.

However he was the first government to say sorry to the Aboriginals (not Maori's) , to sign the Koyoto treaty for environment reforms, and to introduce reforms in education and health.

The Maoris are natives of New Zealand, not Australia, as I recall. Do many of them live in Australia?

I met and spent some time with Maoris several years ago in northern NZ, and I found them to be very gentle and spiritual people.

Dax you are right the Maoris are the native people of New Zealand. A few live in Australia but I think Lizabeth was referring to the Aboriginals the native people of Australia.

They were a more primitive people not resisting the whites like the Maoris. They lost their land and many of their children were taken away from them and put into white ran homes.

Rudd said sorry to these people. But like the American Indians still have problems and live in the outback in poverty. Much more needs to be done for them. However Rudd did more for them than most previous governments.