July 5, 2010. Copyright 2010, Graphic News. All rights reserved

A tough task ahead for Australia’s first woman PM, Julia Gillard
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, July 5, Graphic News:  Julia Gillard’s journey to become Australia’s first woman prime minister has been, predictably, difficult, but how can the girl from the Welsh valleys who has battled sexism and sneering from all quarters now ensure that her appointment really breaks the mould?
 
Gillard, 48, who was propelled into the top job after the Labor Party forced out Kevin Rudd, faces an election within months. While her straight-talking manner and competence have secured the respect of colleagues in Canberra, it might be harder to win over voters who have an instinctive wariness of the unmarried woman born in Barry, Wales.
 
Gillard was a sickly child whose parents moved to Australia as “Ten Pound Poms” when she was four so the climate would improve her health. Her father was a nurse and her mother cooked at a woman’s refuge: money was tight and Gillard joined the Labor Party at just 15, with strong leftwing ideals honed by this early experience of hardship. She has stayed on the left of the party and has yet to win over some more conservative colleagues.
 
After studying arts and law, she struggled to get selected as a Labor candidate until she became chief of staff to Victoria state leader John Brumby, finally winning a seat in 1998. After Labor’s defeat in 2001, she demonstrated her multi-tasking abilities with a wide-ranging portfolio in the shadow cabinet. More recently she has impressed by combining her deputy PM role with a “super ministry” including education and workplace relations. She is known as a collegiate politician and outstanding debater.
 
Gillard, who lives with a longtime boyfriend, a former hairdresser, has spoken openly about her decision not to combine career with family. She has silenced chauvinistic critics of that choice, as well as of her dress sense and accent, with her political savvy, but it is not yet clear how many ordinary Australians are really ready for a woman PM.
 
For the time being, Gillard is riding high in the polls. If she can fulfil her pledge of a speedy resolution to the row with the mining industry over the proposed 40% tax that so damaged Rudd, she could benefit from early elections. But those would pit her against Catholic conservative John Abbott, the breed of politician many of her compatriots are more used to.
/ENDS