when they have their politics glibly summarised in a flip editorial in The Economist. The narrative doesn't always match the reality.

In truth, Gillard has always had consistently higher approval ratings than her opponent, and Abbott has spent most of his time in this campaign talking down his religiosity and archaic views, which are on the whole unappealing for most voters.

Gillard's electoral woes stemmed not from her gender - indeed the bump she receives from female voters more than makes up for any lost votes from sexists - but from internal bickering within her party that threatened to derail her campaign. Now that that has died down, she is again favoured to win the election.

If anything, the more significant problem for Gillard is the steady bleeding from Labor's left flank - the disaffected Left voters (and even left wing unions such as the ETU) who are jumping to the Greens due to the increasingly rightward drift of ALP policy. You chastise Abbott for his views on gay marriage but fail to mention that there is no daylight between the candidates on this issue, or indeed other key issues such as climate change.

A few comments on this article.

1. Ms Gillard's initial problems with the electorate were not the result of her being a woman in a position of power (though of course this received media attention), but because of the way Kevin Rudd had been deposed and Gillard installed in a swift transition that many saw as orchestrated by party faction leaders. People were understandably disconcerted by the way a popularly elected prime minister was pushed out by unelected factional leaders and a deputy leader who had previously and repeatedly stressed her loyalty.

2. As an intriguing and high-profile political figure, of course considerable (and unwarranted) media attention has been given to Ms Gillard's private life. She is also an atheist, but fortunately most Australians don't care about such matters, and Mr Abbott has not sought to make political hay out of the matter (in fact, he would almost certainly lose support if he tried).

3. Although it is certainly true that women are not equally well-represented on boards and in pay equality metrics, and that this is regrettable, it is a stretch to say that this is symptomatic of a culture of 'keeping women in line'. These metrics are the product of broad social trends and by no means unique to Australia. They are improving considerably, and this increase is occurring naturally, rather than as a product of affirmative action. Progress is being made, it is sustainable, and it is reflective of social attitudes and economic realities.

4. I would also be reluctant to attribute Ms Gillard's situation to 'tall poppy syndrome' or a national inferiority complex. Australians (again generalising) are uncomfortable with and make fun of inflated egos and naked ambition. Ms Gillard has neither. It should be noted that she is personally extremely popular, and actually leads Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister by a considerable margin.

5. Ms Gillard herself is not struggling in the polls. She leads Mr Abbott as preferred PM 50-35 according to the most recent Newspoll. Her party, on the other hand, is unpopular in key states, and many doubt its competence. The Rudd government had a number of high-profile failures, scandals and policy reversals which hurt its managerial credentials and eventually led to Mr Rudd's replacement by Ms Gillard. Ms Gillard herself achieved a number of important reforms, but also oversaw a poorly-executed stimulus program that wasted billions of dollars.

6. Mr Abbott is well-known for his socially conservative position, but has moderated his tone in recent years, and has run on a platform of prudent economic management, rather than on social policy.

Despite all of the above, the article concludes that if Gillard loses, it won't be because she's a woman, and that if she wins, it won't be because she's a woman. Cue the final, largely unsupported if harmless claim that this is a 'step forward'.

Cheeky Matey

All pretty spot on observations above, with the following comments and questions:

1. People discount the fact that Gillard is single and doesn't have kids. Perhaps I've been working too long in developing countries so I see Aussies as family-oriented people (because I am), but I reckon it makes the swing voter pause (and when they pause, anything could go through their half-witted minds). It may offend some - and I refer to the predictable outrage decrying that a single woman should not be judged because she hasn't 'produced' a family - but it makes you wonder how it affects her policy-making perspective. It may in fact cause her to over-compensate. Equally, people might attribute her family circumstances as a sign of self-centeredness (which politicians aren't?!) or aloofness from the realities faced by many Australian families;

2. What do people predict about Gillard's foreign policy? How will she go down with SBY and his motley-cabinet? What about Najib's government? As Thailand melts into deeper cycles of political disarray, what will be the projection of Australian foreign interests?

3. Gillard is as tough as a 25-cent steak! This is not someone who found herself one cool morning with the lucky country at her feet. No factional finessing got her the PM slot. Gillard would have kicked and gouged her way there in her inimical street-fighting style. I like this woman - she's gutsy, she has the press on their toes, and she is going to eviscerate that upstart ponce, Abbot!

I am unashamed to wear my political colours and get behind this fiery redhead. Rudd was a patsy and misread the caucus. Gillard won't suffer fools, and she has a social justice bent that will make quite a few Asian leaders think twice about pulling a swifty on her.

Not a single person is disapproving of Gillard because she is female. They might disapprove of her because they don't like the sound of her voice or her stupid statement about bringing out the "Real Julia" but if she loses it will be purely for policy reasons.

People are voting against the ALP because they have abandoned all the progressive policies that got them into office in the first place 3 years ago. If we are going to have a government that is only interested in protecting corporate interests then we might as well put the real conservatives in than the pretend conservatives.

Julia Gillard and her factional supporters forced Kevin Rudd to drop plans for an Emissions Trading Scheme despite polls showing that over 60% of voters want action on climate change and then used the resulting backlash as an excuse to remove him. Julia instead completely de-prioritised climate change action and proposed a ludicrous Citizens Assembly to "try to figure it out." This policy was so heavily criticised that all references to it have been removed from the ALP website.

Despite being an unmarried atheist she is insisting on maintaining a ban on same-sex marriage which has very little community support and callously forced the openly lesbian government minister Penny Wong to defend the ban in a TV interview. Social justice, yeah, right.

Julia Gillard was part of the cabinet decision to impose increased taxes on mining super profits yet as soon as she became PM she rushed off to negotiate a much lower tax rate with the 3 largest mining companies.

Julia Gillard was personally responsible for the School Building stimulus program that supposedly wasted billions of taxpayer funds but did provide much needed facilities to many schools yet has not succeeded in defending this program.

She capitulated in the face of a Liberal scare campaign on asylum seekers arriving by boat because she believes that voters in outer suburban marginal electorates are not intelligent enough to understand that the number of refugees we accept stays the same regardless of how many boats arrive here and that the number is a very small percentage of our total immigration intake.

Julia Gillard's campaign has been far inferior to that run by Kevin Rudd in 2007 which has allowed the Liberal Party a chance of victory despite their confused and irrational policies. Far from eviscerating Abbott as he deserves she is making him look like a genius.

All she had to do was point out that Tony Abbott is against public transport and she would win every electorate in the western suburbs of Sydney. Yet instead she is likely to lose a lot of those seats because she can't come up with a message that resonates with voters.

Her fatal mistake really was rushing to an election before figuring out exactly what her platform was. She just assumed that because people were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt everything would be ok on the day.

That's why I am voting 1 for the Greens on Saturday.

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The title is incredibly misplaced, and to some degree, offensively ignorant.

Australia is a secular liberal nation of the first grade, it touts impressive liberal institutions and is fast becoming a successful multracial society.

Gays can marry there, immigrants are protected by civil liberties, women have been and still are being empowered, visible minorities organize in confidence.

And the Australian people have been at the frontline in forging a more compassionate and progressive society.

Good for them, and long live Australia's fair people!

As for questioning the integrity of the Australian electorate, putting under question their fairness of mind and premising an entire article on the senseless idea that they are somehow too sexist, is inexcusable.

Madam Gillard is leading in the polls, she will most likely sweep into a full and prosperous term. Meanwhile, we wish good riddance to the haters and cynics that degrade Australia's hard-earned reputation.

One more thing,

Chloe Angyal, your a loony leftist and a nut-crack radical feminist to doubt the best of the best in a people.

Your words might be heeded, but they are heeded in disbelief

"Australians, sexist?! Really? Do they even go in the same sentence?"
-The silent majority

One more thing,

Chloe Angyal, your a loony leftist and a nut-crack radical feminist to doubt the best of the best in a people.

Your words might be heeded, hal? y?kamabut they are heeded in disbelief

"Australians, sexist?! Really? Do they even go in the same sentence?"
-The silent majority

thank you very much

haliyikama
haliyikama

Ms Angyal is entitled to her perspective. She said a number of things I happen to disagree with, but she's not entirely wrong. There is residual sexism in Australian society, and some individuals can be extremely sexist. When I suggest that Australian society is not so sexist, that is merely to say that the people who care are considerably counterbalanced by those who don't.

I am an Australian and proud of my country, but itis simply not true to say that there are no problems. Australia is a multicultural society, but witness both parties getting traction out of clamping down on immigration. It does this debate no good to defame someone who is willing to argue ideas as a 'loony leftist and nut-crack radical feminist'.

I also think the author was poorly served by the FP editors who linked to this article with the (attention-grabbing) 'Is Australia too sexist to keep its woman PM?'. Her actual argument was more nuanced and reasonable.

You often read how Republicans in the US make up all sorts of stories that obviously have nothing to do with the truth but are designed to stoke people's prejudices - for example that Barack Obama is a Muslim. It turns out that feminists do exactly the same thing.

This same author, Chloe Angyal, has a piece in Slate about the Australian election. Almost all commenters to that piece are Australians pointing out that the election campaign they have just been through is completely different from how she described it. Chloe Angyal is either clueless, a liar, or both.

This article in FP is just as devoid of the truth. Julia Gillard's gender is simply not an issue, except for a few women voters who will vote for her because of her gender. The fact she is not married and childless and an atheist simply isn't an issue in either mainstream reporting or popular debate. What have been issues are such things as the economic management of the government and the wisdom or otherwise of building an expensive nationwide broadband network.

As has already been pointed out here, a lot of Australia's senior politicians are female, and they are totally accepted in the culture. Just as in any other democracy, in blogs Australians throw all sorts of invective at the politicians they don't like and a lot of it is pretty inane - but nobody has attacked Julia Gillard for being a woman.

Poor old Abbot. He has to negotiate with independents, disaffected nationals to boot. My friend Kunino's analysis is not wrong. Nevertheless, there's a few intriguing elements to the election impasse that many people outside of Australia will not pick up on:

- Projected voting outcomes for both the conservatives and Labor are about neck and neck with 72 seats apiece (it takes 76 seats to get past the post);

- The parliament is hung (and we're still talking about the lower house), but in order to form government there are 4-5 independents who need to be cop-opted by one or both sides. Of course a dead heat is possible too.

- Of the four independents, one is Green (Adam Bandt) who is sure to allign with Labour. The remainder three are indicating they will vote as a blok, but there's a reason why they're independents! Bob Katter from Northern Queensland comes from a Labor-leaning electorate and has nothing but contempt for his former party, the National Party - I reckon Gillard could pick him off. Rob Oakshott and Tony Windsor (both NSW) are probably more conservative-leaning. This leaves the very real possibility of a hung parliament;

- Australia's Head of State (Governor General - the Queen's representative), Quentin Bryce (former Labor) will - at least by convention (and not counting John Kerr in 1975) have to wait for writs to be presented by Gillard and the results of a vote of no-confidence before a new government is installed. This could be dilated for a couple of months;

In terms of the long-term, Labour has shown in the last four elections it is losing its left-of-centre vote in the erroneous belief that diluting their position on industrial relations (workplace fairness), immigration and border control (i.e. letting asylum-seekers in), health reform, education reform, and more recently, climate change. Simply put, pandering to the conservative mores of swing voters has fed votes to the Greens, and possibly lost votes to the conservatives, nationals, and independents. It's a wake-up call for Labor-strategy, and a vindication for the conservatives' strategy.

As for foreign policy, if you remove immigration, it was virtually a non-issue in this last election. I reckon if you asked either candidate to name and spell the names of four Southeast Asian leaders, they couldn't do it.

Thanks
tekirda? hal? y?kama
hal? y?kama tekirdag

What no contributor to this comment string has pointed out so far is that in an act of unprecedented eccentricity, Gillard has been calling on the electors of Australia to support what she names as "my program". It ain't her program, it's her party's program, sesli sohbet due to the fact that Australian prime ministers ain't like US presidents: in British style, they're just local representatives who happen to have been elected party leader by their parliamentary colleagues

It seems to me that Rudd got into trouble for the same reason that Obama has gotten into trouble in the US: not going far enough in undoing the damage that his right-wing predecessors caused. Merkel is having trouble i n Germany for the same reason. People all over the world are tired of right-wing leaders and see all bonus bwin the way through the right-wing ideology.

As for foreign policy, if you remove immigration,ygs lys it was virtually a non-issue in this last election. I reckon if you asked either candidate to name and spell the names of four Southeast Asian leaders, they couldn't do it. Bilgitakip E okul

A woman is finally prime minister of Australia. But for how long is an ideal theme for a piece of writing. "And for the first time in history, she was a woman. Kevin Rudd, who 3 years earlier was swept into office in a landslide, had just been ousted by his deputy prime minister, a woman named Julia Gillard. The arrival of a woman to Australia's highest office was both accidental -- after all, she was installed, not elected -- and inevitable." I am aware that check matey is a truly delicate topic but I simply wanted to disclose my opinion on the topic. My topic of interest is largely quick weight loss, break up and auto insurance rates, I just needed to express that I enjoyed the reflection behind the check matey article.

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