Two Women, One Country (no pun intended) - the battle for leadership of Australia

Unusually, for Australian politics, there are two women fighting for leadership of the Australian Labor Party: Julia Gillard, the current Prime Minister, and Therese Rein, the wife of former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

Of course it's technically Kevin who's quit his job as foreign minister to challenge for the leadership but it was his wife, Therese, who got in front of cameras and urged ordinary Australians 'on their way to work, just like me' to lobby their local MPs and Senators with support for her husband. His daughter tweeted with 'effing proud of you dad' which strikes me as a bit try-hardish from Jessica Rudd (who incidentally took my old desk at Hill & Knowlton in London, so we practically know each other) . Kevin, meanwhile, is somewhere over Hawaii, and not on his way to work.

There's nothing new in political wives publicly campaigning for their husbands. Indeed, it's probably hard to be elected these days without a wife. The media would almost have a moral duty to suggest you were gay (and therefore a paedo), weird (and therefore a paedo) or just plain unpopular (and, well, you get the picture). May as well run with a campaign slogan saying 'Loser'. But this whole Julia/Therese/Kevin thing feels a bit new. Why is that?

Well, I always think you have to look at it back to front. Do you think Julia Gillard would ask her partner, Tim Mathieson, to stand up and lobby her credentials? I'm ten years out of Australia and only get the full political monty when I speak to my mum, so I'm relying on Wikipedia for the reminder that Julia isn't married. She met a bloke called Tim in 2006 and since then they've gone steady. He's been married before and has a few kids from a couple of different women but when quizzed about getting hitched to the PM he basically said (and I love him for this) 'dunno, we'll see'. Apparently, she's the only Australian PM ever not to have been married. It says John McEwen (nope, I've never heard of him either) was a widower at the time of becoming Prime Minister and then married again after leaving office.
I don't think Julia would ask her boyf to get up and speak on her behalf. It would be quite weird, wouldn't it. The media would have a field day. 'The sheila can't speak for herself. She's gotta get her bloke up for 'er. Garn! Get 'er outta here!!' But when Therese gets up everyone says 'Oh, Therese, isn't she luverly'.

I guess my point on this vis a vis the 'Two Women, One Country Challenge' is that if you're a Welsh redhead from Barry and you've moved to Australia and then gone into Aussie politics you really don't need anyone's help. In the nicest possible way Australia is a sexist, xenophobic country and women in politics are about as popular as pigs at Mecca. Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald (the preferred daily of the literate) ran a headline yesterday which read 'The other ranga having a bad day.' 'Ranga' being a derogatory term for a ginga, er, I mean redhead. So, really, when Therese Rein talks about Kevin standing for ordinary people I'm not sure she's thought about the tribulations old 'blood nuts' Gillard has had to cope with.

An exciting discovery for me in this Julia/Therese battle (and again, I'm citing Wiki) is that Julia's boyfriend, Tim, is a hairdresser. I love it. I had steeled myself for the fact that he was some kind of World Leader from Oxbridge who'd found his calling as a wealthy hedge fund manager but no, Tim's from Shepparton in country Victoria and knows the difference between feathered layers and a blunt cut bob. Again, I bloody love him. On second thoughts, maybe I do want him standing up and speaking for his might-be missus. He might say something interesting. But, no, he'll probably just let his woman get on with her career while he gets on with his. Fair enough.

I think my concern for Kevin is this. If he gets re-elected (and, I'm calling it now, he won't), then how's he going to run the country going forward? Therese is going to have to step up everytime he makes a boo boo. She's going to have to hold his hands on the way to school every morning and be there throughout the day to make sure Wayne Swan doesn't dak him and then flush his side parting down the loo. It's going to be Bill and Hiliary all over again but he won't be as popular. This is, after all, the man who had to pretend to get caught in a New York strip club so that Aussie blokes would identify with him in the 2007 election.

Unusually, I sense the Australian media are with me on this. The reporting has been surprisingly free from sexist remarks about JG. There have been lots of stories along the lines of 'thank goodness, plain speaking Julia is back and she's ready to give him a kicking'. She's speaking her mind and staring down that rude journo Michael Owen with a steely glint in her eye. If even the newspapers think she means business, then the woman means business. And good luck to her.

I never thought I'd be alive to see a woman running Australia. But there you go. You hang around long enough, you see everything.


Katherine Burgdorf is President of the United States.


Oh, no, sorry, that was Ronald Reagan's bio. No, Katherine Burgdorf is an Australian in London who often needs to pretend a knowledge of Australian politics. She was a Rudd voter back in 2007 but backing Julia to win.