Just two months ago, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was fighting with her back to the wall, fending off record low levels in opinion polls, a resurgent opposition and a leadership challenge within her own Labor Party.
Yesterday, her party gave her a rousing ovation at the start of a policymaking conference, underlining a remarkable turnaround in a matter of weeks.
The passage of important legislation, an increase in her slim parliamentary majority and well-received visits by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and US President Barack Obama have brought new hope of a revival that will carry through to the next election.
“I said 2011 would be a year of decision and delivery. I never said it wouldn’t be hard,” Gillard said to cheers from lawmakers, union representatives and Labor branch members.
Australian Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten, a former union leader, said there was an added “buzz” around the Labor conference, which is held once every three years, which would strengthen Gillard’s authority over the party.
“We will leave the prime minister’s position being enhanced over the three days,” Shorten said.
The mood was in stark contrast to October, when Gillard’s leadership was being openly questioned by party members, prompting speculation former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd might be drafted back to take over before the next election in late 2013.
Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister, is ending a brutal political year on a high, with a stronger grip on power and her leadership secure after winning parliamentary backing for her two biggest policies — a carbon tax and a 30 percent tax on coal and iron ore miners.
At the same time, she has kept her fragile government together and extended her majority from one seat to three, albeit with outside support, after she lured a disgruntled conservative opposition lawmaker to become parliamentary speaker.
“The government is ending the year with momentum, although they are still in very serious trouble, but there is a big change in political dynamics,” Monash University political analyst Nick Economou said.
With the increased majority, -Gillard now has the flexibility to push through or drop gambling reform, the demand of an independent member of parliament who has threatened to withdraw support for the government if the poker machine laws do not change.
The 51-year-old took over as prime minister in June last year after a coup against Rudd, and then negotiated a minority government with support of the Greens and three independents after dead-heat national elections.
Her government has spent the past year in battle with some powerful and well-financed rivals.
The mining tax angered the nation’s biggest mining companies, while the carbon tax upset manufactures, coal miners and electricity generators. The planned gambling reforms have upset the gambling industry, sporting bodies and community clubs.
The government has also fought with Rupert Murdoch’s Australian media empire, which is the major domestic newspaper publisher, over political coverage and Gillard’s plans for a national high-speed broadband network.
Economou said the fact Gillard was an unmarried woman, with no children, who did not believe in God, also made it difficult for her to win over “family values” voters in the suburbs of Australia’s cities, who are the key to winning elections.
That contrasts to combative opposition leader Tony Abbott, who once trained to be a Catholic priest and has pointedly campaigned with his wife and children to appeal to families.
“One of her biggest problems is getting voters to trust her,” Economou said.
Despite Gillard’s revival, however, Labor still remains well behind in the polls and is likely to lose the next election, with Abbott to become prime minister if he can maintain support from his conservatives.
“All Abbott has to do is hang on. Whoever leads the Liberal Party will be prime minister by the end of 2013,” Economou said.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS