WHOA. I mean, whoa, shit. What happened? Where did that come from?! How have we gone from initial burblings to full on Prime Ministerial overhaul in the space of 14 hours? Most of which were spent, at least by me, sleeping?

Sure, there had been a bit of chatter kicking around the papers recently, but most of that was coming from The Australian and, let's be honest, by this point in time that paper is pretty much just Fox News but with nicer fonts. For the last couple of months their front covers have been a string of hysterical accusations - "Rudd Destroying Economy!", "Rudd Hates Hard-Working, Regular Australians Like You!", "Rudd gave AIDS to orphan!" and suchlike - that were usually completely unrelated stories of the day prefaced with a disaffected Labor party member that they'd plucked from the arse-end of Queensland who they could wheel out to say "Oh yeah, I don't know about that Kevin. I never liked him. His eyes were too close together." It was kind of like Tea Party rallies in the US finding singular black people who agree with them just to make it look like they aren't actually horrifically racist.

But, well, here we are. They started it, everyone else followed. And when the miners got in on the action it really felt like it was just a matter of time. Had this happened a year ago I think there's little doubt that Kev would have weathered the crisis, his leadership intact - lest we forget the latest polls still had him with a winning lead - but being three months away from an election just tends to clarify the thoughts y'know?



The right has apparently installed Gillard, a card-carrying member of the left, in the hope that she'll collapse to the right in, I dunno, some sort of abject gesture of thanks for the amazing gift they just bestowed upon her. However, one imagines this could be wishful thinking, as from all reports Gillard went absolutely fucking ballistic when she heard what was going on last night. Kinda understandable considering none of this was actually her doing. I imagine Julia was planning a nice, easy-going takeover, either after Rudd was defeated by Abbott at the election in three months time, or a year or so in to Rudd's next term. I think she was completely and utterly serious when she said she had no intention of challenging the leadership. But certain things were then said that could not possibly be unsaid and for a man in Kevin Rudd's already threatened position, there was only one possible solution. Smash a room's worth of priceless vases and then accept his inevitable demise.



I think we all thought and assumed that Gillard was going to be our first female PM, but not now. Not like this. However, I don't think she's been handed as poisoned a chalice as certain people seem to think. Most of what has constituted Abbott's comparative popularity right now was  the seething resentment towards Rudd as well as the departure of left-leaning voters towards The Greens. There's every chance that with Rudd out of the way those voters will begin to return to the party, and with as formidable a parliamentary force as Gillard opposing him there's every chance that Abbott will begin to flake as well. Keep in mind, he's yet to articulate any coherent policy beyond a quite admirable maternity leave program that was summarily shot down by his own party. He is an oppositional force in the truest sense, and with his point of opposition gone he's going to have to do some serious realigning. Especially when facing up against a woman who can only possibly make his own already questionable rapport with the female population of Australia look increasingly fraught.

That or come up with something original of his own to spruik.

But hey, at the very least it has spiced up what was looking increasingly like the dullest and most dispiriting election in living memory. So, you know, there's that.


Either way, what has happened has happened and now we have a female, unwed, childless atheist holding the reigns of power. As someone sagely pointed out, I have never felt so represented. Even with the woman thing. And maybe it's not strictly democratic (although it is strictly legal in the context of Australian democracy), but there will undoubtedly be an election in a few months and we'll have the chance to make it democratic, if that so happens to be the mood of the electorate. Which it may well be - we're already familiar with Gillard as Acting PM and she is almost undoubtedly the best performer currently serving in the Australian Federal Parliament. Despite the proximity to the next election, she's hardly an unknown quantity. And in the meantime K-Rudd can just head to a tropical island with Therese and sup on mint juleps until he passes out. He deserves a break.

But for now we say goodbye to a man who, while not the best Prime Minister we ever had, was also by no means our worst. Because, whatever you might otherwise say, he was still the PM who apologised to the Stolen Generations, fought against climate change, deposed Howard and guided us ably through the the second worst financial crisis in world history. The PM who gave us all $950 just for being alive. And the PM who introduced the word "rat-fucker" into the popular lexicon. I mean, that's pretty special even for a country that's experienced both Hawke AND Keating.



But now to leave you, because there's no such thing as a major world event without Keyboard Cat, Keyboard Cat playing off Kevin Rudd (yes, I'm sure better ones will emerge, but hey, you gotta work with what you got at the time)