The Australian Prime Minister got knifed today...

They came and got him later last night, his party's Machiavellis only needed 2 months to assemble the numbers aginst him once his 'popularity' as measured by the pollsters dipped below 50%.

For 2 years before that, he'd remained the most popular PM we've ever had (often with >70% approval). He didn't beat up on asylum seakers like all preveius PMs and decided to take a decade of financier's advice to overhaul the taxes levied on the local mining industry. They waged a multi-million dollar fear campaign against him and that allowed his party to plot and conspire against him.

He was autocratic but got **** done. He didn't listen to the whingers, and pushed everyone to get things done. In a lucky (aka lazy) western country, this doesn't win you friends.

Now his deputy has taken over. First ever female Australian PM. She will be an awesome PM and most liely be very popular (apparently the party was worried about losing the upcoming election). However, she may not have the plan or the drive or the independence that 'Mr Popular' had, none of the power brokers in his party felt he gave a **** about them, and were probably right. If she does, we'll be rooted. They are mostly ****ers.

In Aussie politics, the capable politicians get spat out and the bad, unrepresentative ones hang around forever. Hopefully Julia will break that rule and deliver too.

I didn't like him much though, although one of his many initatives is going to deliver >100Mbps Internet connectivity to the entire nation, at the same time had an Evil minister wasting enormous amounts of money on attmpeting to filter it like they do in China to enact censorship and limit free speech. Julia Gillard (the new PM) has yet to dump that one. Grrr!

Dont know much about Rudd but I thought he was doing a good job. His own party voted 112 to nil for Julia Gillard though? AFIK he did a U-turn on climate change policy. But perhaps more importantly he decided to smack your mining industries with heavy taxes? Is that about the size of it or did I miss something?