Deputy Prime Minister
After the Labor Party's victory in the 2007 federal election, Gillard was sworn in as the first ever female Deputy Prime Minister of Australia on 3 December 2007. In addition to being made Deputy Prime Minister, Gillard was given responsibility for a so-called "super ministry", the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
In her role as Minister for Education, Gillard travelled to Washington D.C., where she signed a deal with US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to encourage improved policy collaboration in education reform between both countries. As Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Gillard removed the WorkChoices industrial relations regime introduced by the Howard Government, and replaced it with the Fair Work Bill. This established a single industrial relations bureaucracy called Fair Work Australia. Gillard also oversaw the government's "Building the Education Revolution" program, which allocated $16 billion to build new school accommodation including classrooms, libraries and assembly halls.
On 11 December 2007, she temporarily assumed the duties of the Prime Minister while Kevin Rudd attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, becoming the first woman ever to do so. She assumed these duties for a total of 69 days during Rudd's various overseas travel engagements. Gillard quickly became known as a highly regarded debater, with her performances during parliamentary question time prompting Peter van Onselen to call her "the best parliamentary performer on the Labor side".
Read more about this topic: Julia Gillard
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“One wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold but never venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners, and, above all, a thick skin.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
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