Welsh-born lawyer Julia Gillard became Australia's first woman prime minister Thursday after the once hugely popular Kevin Rudd fell to a party coup less than three years after taking office.
The tough, flame-haired Gillard was elected unopposed in a shock Labor Party ballot called just hours earlier, saying she could not "sit idly by" as public and factional support swung dramatically away from the former leader, AFP reported.
"I asked my colleagues to make a leadership change because I believe that a good government was losing its way... and at risk at the next election," Gillard said. "I was not going to sit idly by."
Gillard, 48, pledged to seek a popular mandate within months, and set about reversing the issues that sank Rudd by pursuing a dropped carbon trading scheme and urging mining chiefs to cancel a TV campaign against a planned new tax.
Gillard is now tasked with turning around the fortunes of a Labor Party which has been flirting dangerously with becoming the first government since World War II not to secure a second term.
"You've got a party that's clearly lost confidence in the direction that it's been pursuing, the leader that took them to the last election," said Rodney Smith, an election expert from the University of Sydney.
