My Story
My Story

Author: Julia Gillard

Publisher: Random House Australia

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 0857983997

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On Wednesday 23 June 2010, with the government in turmoil, Julia Gillard asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for a leadership ballot. The next day, Julia Gillard became Australia's 27th prime minister, and our first female leader. Australia was alive to the historic possibilities. Here was a new approach for a new time. It was to last three extraordinary years. This is Julia Gillard's chronicle of that turbulent time, a strikingly candid self-portrait of a political leader seeking to realise her ideals. It is her story of what it was like - in the face of government in-fighting and often hostile media - to manage a hung parliament, build a diverse and robust economy, create an equitable and world-class education system, ensure a dignified future for Australians with disabilities, all while attending to our international obligations and building strategic alliances for our future. This is a politician driven by a sense of purpose - from campus days with the Australian Union of Students, to a career in the law, to her often gritty, occasionally glittering rise up the ranks of the Australian Labor Party. Refreshingly honest, peppered with a wry humour and personal insights, Julia Gillard does not shy away from her mistakes, admitting freely to errors, misjudgements, and policy failures as well as detailing her political successes. In the immediate aftermath of the leadership, here is her account, of what was hidden behind the resilience and dignified courage Gillard showed as prime minister, her view of the vicious hate campaigns directed against her, and a reflection on what it means - and what it takes - to be a woman leader in contemporary politics. With new material and fresh insights, Julia Gillard reveals what life was really like as Australia's first female prime minister. 'An honest and compelling account of what life is like at the highest political levels- Gillard is an engaging and incisive guide.' Sydney Morning Herald 'Julia Gillard's memoir provides real, detailed, forensic, and clinical insight into the government from her central, completely unique, vantage point.' Katharine Murphy, The Guardian 'Provides a cogent defence of the reasons for the challenge to Rudd, the difficulties her government faced, both internal and external, and an insight into Gillard herself.' The Conversation

My Story
My Story

Author: Julia Gillard

Publisher: Random House Australia

Published: 2014-09-24

Total Pages: 869

ISBN-13: 0857983911

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'I was prime minister for three years and three days. Three years and three days of resilience. Three years and three days of changing the nation. Three years and three days for you to judge.' On Wednesday 23 June 2010, with the government in turmoil, Julia Gillard asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for a leadership ballot. The next day, Julia Gillard became Australia's 27th prime minister, and our first female leader. Australia was alive to the historic possibilities. Here was a new approach for a new time. It was to last three extraordinary years. This is Julia Gillard's chronicle of that turbulent time, a strikingly candid self-portrait of a political leader seeking to realise her ideals. It is her story of what it was like - in the face of government in-fighting and often hostile media - to manage a hung parliament, build a diverse and robust economy, create an equitable and world-class education system, ensure a dignified future for Australians with disabilities, all while attending to our international obligations and building strategic alliances for our future. This is a politician driven by a sense of purpose - from campus days with the Australian Union of Students, to a career in the law, to her often gritty, occasionally glittering rise up the ranks of the Australian Labor Party. Refreshingly honest, peppered with a wry humour and personal insights, Julia Gillard does not shy away from her mistakes, admitting freely to errors, misjudgements, and policy failures as well as detailing her political successes. In the immediate aftermath of the leadership, here is her account, of what was hidden behind the resilience and dignified courage Gillard showed as prime minister, her view of the vicious hate campaigns directed against her, and a reflection on what it means - and what it takes - to be a woman leader in contemporary politics. With new material and fresh insights, Julia Gillard reveals what life was really like as Australia's first female prime minister. 'An honest and compelling account of what life is like at the highest political levels: Gillard is an engaging and incisive guide.' Sydney Morning Herald 'Julia Gillard’s memoir provides real, detailed, forensic, and clinical insight into the government from her central, completely unique, vantage point.' Katharine Murphy, The Guardian 'Provides a cogent defence of the reasons for the challenge to Rudd, the difficulties her government faced, both internal and external, and an insight into Gillard herself.' The Conversation

Women and Leadership
Women and Leadership

Author: Julia Gillard

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2022-02-15

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0262543826

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A powerful call-to-action for gender equity that offers 10 key lessons for women aspiring to a leadership role—be it in politics, business, law, or their local community. Featuring words of wisdom from female leaders like Hillary Clinton and Theresa May, this empowering study reads like a You Are a Badass volume on world leadership. Women make up fewer than 10% of national leaders worldwide. Behind this eye-opening statistic lies a pattern of unequal access to power. Through conversations with some of the world’s most powerful and interesting women—including Jacinda Ardern, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Christine Lagarde, Michelle Bachelet, and Theresa May—Women and Leadership explores gender bias and asks why there aren’t more women in leadership roles. Speaking honestly and freely, these women talk about having their ideas stolen by male colleagues, what it’s like to be called fat or a slut in the media, and what things they wish they had done differently. The stories they tell reveal vividly how gender and sexism affect perceptions of women as leaders. Using current research as a starting point, Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala—both political leaders in their own countries—analyze the lived experiences of these women leaders. The result is a rare insight into life as a leader and a powerful call to arms for women everywhere.

The Stalking of Julia Gillard
The Stalking of Julia Gillard

Author: Kerry-Anne Walsh

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1742379222

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This is the story of one of the most extraordinary episodes in recent Australian political history, of how a powerful media pack, a vicious commentariat, and some of those within her own party contrived to bring down Australia's first female prime minister When Julia Gillard took the reins of the Australian Labor Party on June 24, 2010, she did so with the goodwill of the majority of her party and a fawning Canberra press gallery. The man she had supplanted, Kevin Rudd, led an isolated band of angry Labor voices at this surprising turn of events. The collective political and media verdict was that his time, short though it had been, was up. But when Gillard announced in February 2011 that her government would introduce a carbon pricing scheme, Rudd and his small team of malcontents were already in lock-step with key Canberra and interstate journalists in a drive to push her out of the prime ministerial chair. Never has a prime minister been so assiduously stalked. Cast as a political liar and policy charlatan, Julia Gillard was also mercilessly and relentlessly lampooned for her hair, clothes, accent, her arse, and even the way she walks and talks. Rudd, on the other hand, could barely do any wrong. His antics were afforded benign, unquestioning prime-time media coverage. This is the story about one of the most extraordinary episodes in recent Australian political history. It focuses on Team Rudd and the media's treatment of its slow-death campaign of destabilization, with its disastrous effect on Gillard and the government's functioning. It is about a politician who was never given a fair go; not in the media, not by Rudd, not by some in caucus.

The Killing Season Uncut
The Killing Season Uncut

Author: Sarah Ferguson

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2016-04-18

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0522869963

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Australians came to the ABC's The Killing Season in their droves, their fascination with the Rudd–Gillard struggle as unfinished as the saga itself. Rudd and Gillard dominate the drama as they strain to claim the narrative of Labor's years in power. The journey to screen for each of their interviews is telling in itself. Kevin Rudd gives his painful account of the period and recalled in vivid detail the events of losing the prime ministership. Julia Gillard is frank and unsparing of her colleagues. More than a hundred people were interviewed for The Killing Season—ministers, backbenchers, staffers, party officials, pollsters and public servants—recording their vivid accounts of the public and private events that made the Rudd and Gillard governments and then brought them undone. It is a damning portrait of a party at war with itself: the personal rivalries and the bitter defeats that have come to define the Rudd–Gillard era. "The making of The Killing Season matched the drama on screen and that’s a story we wanted to tell. And now we have a place for the episodes of rich material we could have put into a 5-part series." — Sarah Ferguson

The Game
The Game

Author: Sean Kelly

Publisher: Black Inc.

Published: 2021-11-01

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1743821980

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What happens when the prime minister views politics only as a game? Australia wanted Scott Morrison. In a time of uncertainty, the country chose in 2019 to turn to a man with no obvious beliefs, no clear purpose and no famous talents. That we wanted Scott Morrison was the secret we did not know about ourselves. What precisely that secret is forms the subject of this book. In The Game, Sean Kelly gives us a portrait of a man, the shallow political culture that allowed him to succeed and the country that crowned him. Morrison understands – in a way that no other recent politician has – how politics has become a game. He also understands something essential about Australia – something many of us are unwilling to admit, even to ourselves. But there are things Scott Morrison does not understand. This is the story of those failures, too – and the way that, as his prime ministership continues, Morrison’s failure to think about politics as anything other than a game has become a dangerous liability, both to him and to us.

Through The Wall
Through The Wall

Author: Anna Bligh

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2015-04-01

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1460703421

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'This is a personal account of life at the top that will charm the general reader and the political tragic alike' Weekend Australian Anna Bligh knows something about hard knocks and high walls. She was raised by a single mother in the working class Gold Coast, a young girl with a soon-to-be-estranged dad who struggled with alcoholism. She spent over 17 years in the rough and tumble of the Queensland Parliament (seven of them as either Deputy Premier or Premier) and she was the first woman to be elected Premier of an Australian State in her own right. In 2011, she led Queensland through the devastation of Australia's largest natural disasters. Her Party then lost the 2012 State election and Anna stepped down to start a new life, only to find herself diagnosed with cancer. Writing with her trademark honesty, warmth and humour about the challenges that public and private life have thrown her, Anna reflects candidly -- as a wife, mother, daughter, friend and political leader -- on the lessons of leadership, resilience, community and family. 'It is not my bruises and scratches that I want others to see,' she writes in this inspiring, unflinching and engaging memoir about breaking through walls and overcoming obstacles, 'I want them to see the hole in the wall.' 'Compelling reading ... Bligh is a consummate communicator' Sara Dowse, Inside Story 'This reflective autobiography is an inspiration to all women to overcome all obstacles in the way of success' Ballarat Courier 'Partly framed as an inspirational text for future leaders, especially the women who will come after her ... Bligh has written one of the more readable political memoirs of recent years' ABR

This Child Will Be Great
This Child Will Be Great

Author: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-04-07

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0061353477

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In January 2006, after the Republic of Liberia had been racked by fourteen years of brutal civil conflict, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—Africa's "Iron Lady"—was sworn in as president, an event that marked a tremendous turning point in the history of the West African nation. In this stirring memoir, Sirleaf shares the inside story of her rise to power, including her early childhood; her experiences with abuse, imprisonment, and exile; and her fight for democracy and social justice. This compelling tale of survival reveals Sirleaf's determination to succeed in multiple worlds: from her studies in the United States to her work as an international bank executive to her election campaigning in some of Liberia's most desperate and war-torn villages and neighborhoods. It is also the story of an outspoken political and social reformer who, despite danger, fought the oppression of dictators and championed change. By sharing her story, Sirleaf encourages women everywhere to pursue leadership roles at the highest levels of power, and gives us all hope that, with perseverance, we can change the world.

Read My Lips
Read My Lips

Author: Vanessa S. Williamson

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0691191603

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A surprising and revealing look at what Americans really believe about taxes Conventional wisdom holds that Americans hate taxes. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Bringing together national survey data with in-depth interviews, Read My Lips presents a surprising picture of tax attitudes in the United States. Vanessa Williamson demonstrates that Americans view taxpaying as a civic responsibility and a moral obligation. But they worry that others are shirking their duties, in part because the experience of taxpaying misleads Americans about who pays taxes and how much. Perceived "loopholes" convince many income tax filers that a flat tax might actually raise taxes on the rich, and the relative invisibility of the sales and payroll taxes encourages many to underestimate the sizable tax contributions made by poor and working people. Americans see being a taxpayer as a role worthy of pride and respect, a sign that one is a contributing member of the community and the nation. For this reason, the belief that many Americans are not paying their share is deeply corrosive to the social fabric. The widespread misperception that immigrants, the poor, and working-class families pay little or no taxes substantially reduces public support for progressive spending programs and undercuts the political standing of low-income people. At the same time, the belief that the wealthy pay less than their share diminishes confidence that the political process represents most people. Upending the idea of Americans as knee-jerk opponents of taxes, Read My Lips examines American taxpaying as an act of political faith. Ironically, the depth of the American civic commitment to taxpaying makes the failures of the tax system, perceived and real, especially potent frustrations.

Our Divided Political Heart
Our Divided Political Heart

Author: E.J. Dionne Jr.

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2012-05-22

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 160819440X

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America today is at a political impasse; we face a nation divided and discontented. Acclaimed political commentator E.J. Dionne argues that Americans can't agree on who we are as a nation because we can't agree on who we've been, or what it is, philosophically and spiritually, that makes us "Americans." Dionne places our current quarrels in the long-standing tradition of struggle between two core values: the love of individualism and our reverence for community. Both make us who we are, and to ignore either one is to distort our national character. He sees the current Tea Party as a representation of hyper-individualism, and takes on their agenda-serving distortions of history, from the Revolution to the Civil War and the constitutional role of government. Tea Partiers have reacted fiercely to President Obama, who seeks to restore a communitarian balance - a cause in American liberalism which Dionne traces through recent decades. The ability of the American system to self-correct may be one of its greatest assets, but we have been caught in cycles of over-correcting. Dionne seeks, through an understanding of our factious past, to rediscover the idea of true progress, and the confidence that it can be achieved.