Kevin Rudd is gone, and Australia has its first female PM. Stuff reports:
BREAKING NEWS: Julia Gillard is to become Australia’s first female prime minister after Kevin Rudd stood down as Labor leader at a caucus meeting this morning.
Ms Gillard, not Mr Rudd, will now decide when to lead her party into the next election.
It is understood Mr Rudd stood aside to avoid a humiliating defeat. The new Deputy Prime Minister is Wayne Swan.
Just a year ago, Mr Rudd rivalled Bob Hawke as Australia’s most popular leader. But he now joins Mr Hawke as the only other Labor prime minister dumped by his party.
As Marty G wrote:
PM Kevin Rudd has lost the support of the powerful Australian Workers’ Union and an array of the ALP’s factions to Julia Gillard. It’s been a dramatic fall for Rudd, who was so incredibly popular for his first two years as PM … Gillard will make a stark contrast to the strange conservative leader of the Liberals, Tony Abbott, but has a lot of work to do to win Labor a second term.
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