A Podcast of One’s Own with Julia Gillard
I’ve often wondered how former prime ministers and presidents cope with losing office. How does your brain adjust to being the most powerful person in the country one minute, and then the next minute have literally nothing to do and no decisions to make? An American president has time to prepare for this eventuality and mentally adjust. They also have a planned post-presidential life. Not so much for British or Australian prime ministers. The minority choose the time of their own departures, but most are either turfed out of office by the electorate, or in the case of Aussie PMs, usually by their own parties. Julia Gillard was the first female prime minister of Australia and served from 2010 to 2013. She attained office by launching a leadership coup (or ‘spill’ in Australian) against Kevin Rudd. He got his own back by turfing her out three years later, although it was a brief feeling of vindication, because he lost the subsequent election, and Labor has been out of power ever since.
