Julia Gillard has gone from “Ten Pound Pom” to Australia’s first woman prime minister helped by her engaging common sense, caustic wit and some ruthless political maneuvering.
Gillard was just a small child when she sailed into Australia in 1966 after her parents uprooted from Wales hoping warmer air would cure their daughter’s chronic lung problems.
Julia Eileen Gillard was born on Sept. 29, 1961 in Barry, a port town central to Welsh coal-mining. Her parents, John and Moira, took advantage of Australia’s £10 (US$15) migration offer, aimed at boosting its workforce, on medical advice.
“[The doctor said Julia] will not be able to grow up in the very cold weather,” Moira Gillard said in 2006. “He said: ‘Take her to a warmer climate.’ So we came to Australia.”
Gillard was a bright student who read arts and law in Adelaide. She then forged a career in industrial relations law, becoming a partner with Slater and Gordon in 1990, before edging into politics as chief of staff to then-Victoria State’s opposition leader John Brumby.
After initially being rejected by the Labor Party for a parliamentary seat, Gillard went to parliament in 1998 after winning the safe seat of Lalor in Melbourne.
Gillard forged a reputation as a pragmatic politician and consensual leader, as well as a formidable parliamentary performer.
She also polished her public image after subduing the harsh “Footscray Fishwife” intonations, a thick Australian accent with nasal tones, which marked her early career.
After becoming prime minister, Gillard shrewdly declined to move to The Lodge, the prime minister’s residence, without a public mandate, dividing her time between her Canberra apartment and her Melbourne home.
“If I’d been a boy and [sister] Alison had been a girl, people would have said almost that’s the natural order of things,” she told public broadcaster ABC.
“There’s something in me that’s focused and single-minded and if I was going to do that [have a family], I’m not sure I could have done this [have a political career],” she said.
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