Australia's first female PM

It was the night of the long knives. It was brutal, it was efficient and very little blood dirtied the floor. Kevin Rudd, the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, served only just two years and 200 days and was the first Prime Minister in living memory to be executed during his first term in office.

There is no doubt that the nation is uneasy and was stunned by how quickly his reign ended. After all, this was the most popular Prime Minister Australia ever had, reaching 63 per cent approval only five months ago.

A tearful Mr Rudd surrendered the PM's office, standing aside without a fight after having realised that a cabal of sectional heavyweights, frightened MPs and members of the senior ministry, once loyal to him, had all decided that his deputy gives the Labour Party a better chance of staying in power at the next election. Australian Federal elections are held every three years. Labour private polls indicated that they were in deep trouble, at an unwinnable 35 per cent of the primary votes.

The Labour Party has installed Julie Gillard as the 27th Prime Minister. "There will be some days I delight you, there may be some days I disappoint you. On every day I will be working absolute hardest for you." With this pledge, the first woman Prime Minister of Australia became the boss and declared that she would take the nation to the polls this year to win a mandate for her leadership.

Opinion polls taken immediately after her appointment show voters overwhelmingly believe the switch from Mr Rudd to Ms Gillard was the right move.

Mr Rudd is far from the first PM to be dumped by his own party. The last was another Labour leader, Bob Hawke, who was replaced in a leadership spill in favour of Paul Keating in December 1991. By that time, Mr Hawke had won four federal elections. In 1971, the Liberal Party dumped Prime Minister John Gorton in favour of Billy McMahon who then as PM served for only a year and nine months.

A full 109 years after Australia gave women the vote, a female was elected Prime Minister. Ms Gillard, 48, solicitor, unmarried but living with her partner Tim Mathieson, was born in a small town called Barry in Wales. She arrived in Australia with her parents John and Moira as £10 English migrants. Julia had recurring pneumonia and the doctors suggested a move to a warmer climate. The Gillard family moved to Adelaide, Australia when Julia was five years old. An immigrant girl who grew up to be the first female Prime Minister is a remarkable Australian story.

In 1998, she was elected to the Victorian seat of Lalor. In July she was appointed Labour Opposition Health spokesman and on December 4, 2006 she was elected unopposed as Labour's deputy leader alongside Mr Rudd who was elected leader.

The new Prime Minister freely acknowledged the Rudd government had gone off track. "I take my fair share of responsibility, for our important achievements and for the errors."

Our leaders tend to be inspired most of the time by callow advice from young staffers with no deep knowledge of politics resulting in rapid-fire, poll-driven decision-making with little space for old-fashioned policy-making and stable leadership.