Gillard government
The Gillard government was the Government of Australia led by the 27th prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, of the Australian Labor Party. The Gillard government succeeded the first Rudd government by way of the Labor Party leadership spill, and began on 24 June 2010, with Gillard sworn in as prime minister by the governor-general of Australia, Quentin Bryce. The Gillard government ended when Kevin Rudd won back the leadership of the Australian Labor Party on 26 June 2013 and commenced the second Rudd government.
Before mounting her successful 2010 challenge to Rudd's leadership, Gillard had served as Deputy Prime Minister in the first Rudd government. With Treasurer Wayne Swan as her Deputy, Gillard went on to lead her party to the 2010 Australian federal election against the Liberal-National Coalition led by Tony Abbott. The election resulted in a hung Parliament in which Gillard secured the support of the Australian Greens and three independents to form a government. Leadership challenges occurred intermittently between Gillard and Rudd resulting in Labor leadership spills in February 2012, March 2013 and June 2013, the last of which ended her prime ministership.
Major policy initiatives of the Gillard government included, the Clean Energy Bill 2011, asylum seeker policy, Mineral Resource Rent Tax, National Broadband Network, schools funding following the Gonski Review and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Management of the Labor Party's alliances with the Greens and Independents were an ongoing issue following the 2010 election. In late 2011, the government secured the defection of a Liberal member Peter Slipper to serve as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Slipper resigned as speaker in October. In early 2012 the government lost the support of independent Andrew Wilkie. In May 2012 it suspended backbencher Craig Thomson from the ALP as evidence mounted that he had defrauded the Health Services Union. The Greens ended their formal alliance with Labor in February 2013 over taxation policy, but continued to offer confidence and supply.
Background
Gillard became deputy leader of the Labor opposition during the final term of the Howard Coalition government in December 2006. The appointment came after a challenge to the leadership of Kim Beazley by Kevin Rudd. Rudd and Gillard defeated Beazley and his deputy Jenny Macklin in a caucus vote for the party leadership.The Rudd-Gillard ticket then defeated the long-serving Howard government at the 2007 election. The first Rudd Ministry was sworn in by Governor General Michael Jeffrey on 3 December 2007, with Gillard appointed deputy prime minister. Gillard was also assigned the portfolios of Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and Minister for Social Inclusion.
In her role as a minister, Gillard removed the WorkChoices industrial relations regime introduced by the Howard government, as well as some earlier reforms of the Hawke-Keating government, and replaced them with the Fair Work Bill. The bill established a single industrial relations bureaucracy called Fair Work Australia, in addition to the Fair Work Ombudsman, and both became operational on 1 July 2009.
In 2009, Gillard oversaw the government's "Building the Education Revolution" programme that allocated $16 billion towards the building of new school accommodation, such as classrooms, libraries and assembly halls. The programme was part of the government's economic stimulus response to the 2008 financial crisis and its expense became controversial.
Gillard becomes Prime Minister
After an initial period of popularity, by mid-2009, following the failure of the government's insulation program and amidst controversy regarding the implementation of a tax on mining, the failure of the government to secure passage of its Carbon Trading Scheme, and debate about immigration policy, significant disaffection had arisen within the Labor Party as to the leadership style and direction of Kevin Rudd. According to the ABC's 7:30 Report, the seeds for a push for Julia Gillard to challenge Rudd came from "Victorian Right factional heavyweights" Bill Shorten and Senator David Feeney, who secured the support of "New South Wales right power broker" Mark Arbib. Feeney and Arbib went to discuss the matter of leadership challenge with Gillard on the morning of 23 June and a final numbers count began for a leadership challenge.The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 24 June that the final catalyst for this move was "sparked by a report in that Mr Rudd had used his chief of staff, Alister Jordan, to sound out the backbench over the past month on the level of support for him. This followed a Herald/Nielsen poll which showed the government would lose if an election were held then" and that "Rudd's action was regarded as a sign that he did not trust the repeated assurances by Ms Gillard that she would not stand".
On 23 June 2010, Kevin Rudd called a press conference announcing that a leadership ballot of the Australian Labor Party would occur on the morning of 24 June 2010, with the candidates being himself and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard. This followed weeks of speculation that senior members of the ALP were beginning to lose confidence in Rudd and would back Gillard in replacing him if necessary. By the eve of the election, it was obvious that Rudd didn't have enough support to remain ALP leader and prime minister. Rudd withdrew his candidacy and resigned as party leader, leaving Gillard to take the leadership unopposed. Gillard was then sworn in as Australia's 27th prime minister by Governor-general Quentin Bryce and became Australia's first female prime minister on 24 June 2010, with Treasurer Wayne Swan being appointed deputy prime minister.
In her first press conference as Labor Leader on 23 June, Gillard said that after three and a half years of "most loyal service", she had asked her colleagues to make a leadership change "because I believed that a good government was losing its way" and that Labor was at risk at the next election. She assured the public that her government would restore the budget to surplus in 2013 and said that it would build community consensus for a price on carbon and open negotiations with the mining industry for a re-vamped mining profits tax. She praised Kevin Rudd as a man of "remarkable achievement" and Wayne Swan as an outstanding Treasurer who would guide Australia to surplus.
In the aftermath of the leadership challenge, Bill Shorten, former trade union leader, and key Parliamentary member of the ALP Right Faction, nominated the government's handling of the insulation program; the sudden announcement of change of policy on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme; and the way in which they had "introduced the debate" about the Resource Super Profits Tax as the key considerations which had led to a shift in support from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard as leader of the party.
2010 federal election
On 17 July 2010, 23 days after becoming prime minister and after receiving the agreement of the Governor-General Quentin Bryce, Gillard announced the next federal election for 21 August 2010. Gillard began campaigning with a speech using the slogan "moving forward". In the early stages of the campaign, a series of leaks were released by purported Labor Party sources, indicating apparent divisions within Cabinet over the replacement of Kevin Rudd by Gillard. Midway through the campaign, Gillard offered journalists a self-assessment of her campaign by saying that she had been paying too much attention to advisers in her strategy team, and she wanted to run a less "stage-managed" campaign, saying: "I think it's time for me to make sure that the real Julia is well and truly on display, so I'm going to step up and take personal charge of what we do in the campaign from this point":Gillard met Opposition leader Tony Abbott for one official debate during the campaign. Studio audience surveys by Channel 9 and the Seven Network suggested a win to Gillard. Unable to agree on further debates, the leaders went on to appear separately on stage for questioning at community forums in Sydney and Brisbane. An audience exit poll of the Rooty Hill RSL audience indicated an Abbott victory. Gillard won the audience poll at the Broncos Leagues Club meeting in Brisbane on 18 August. Gillard also appeared on the ABC's Q&A program on 9 August. On 7 August, Gillard was questioned by former Labor leader turned Channel Nine reporter Mark Latham.
Labor's campaign was damaged by a series of leaks apparently emanating from a person or persons connected to the Rudd government's inner Cabinet circle. On 15 July, at her National Press Club address, Gillard was quizzed by Channel Nine journalist Laurie Oakes on details of her discussions with Rudd during her leadership challenge. Subsequently, it was reported that government sources said that Gillard "argued in cabinet against paid parental leave and questioned the size of a pension rise". Kevin Rudd and outgoing federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner denied responsibility for the leaks. On 7 August, in the first reported face-to-face meeting of the pair since the leadership change, Gillard and Rudd appeared together in Brisbane with senior campaign advisers including John Faulkner, to discuss Rudd's role in the last two weeks of the campaign. The Australian newspaper reported: "The brief footage showed no eye contact between the past and present Labor leaders as they discussed campaign tactics".
Gillard officially "launched" Labor's campaign in Brisbane five days before polling day, outlining Labor policies and using the slogan: "Yes we will move forward together".
Minority government
Labor and the Coalition each won 72 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, four short of the requirement for majority government, resulting in the first hung parliament since the 1940 election. Both major party leaders sought to form a minority government.Six crossbench MPs held the balance of power. Four crossbench MPs, Greens Adam Bandt and independents Andrew Wilkie, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor declared their support for Labor on confidence and supply, in return for some legislative concessions, allowing Gillard and Labor to remain in power with a 76–74 minority government. Governor-General Bryce swore in the second Gillard Ministry on 14 September 2010.