Kevin Rudd - Prime Minister

Prime Minister

On 3 December 2007, Rudd was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of Australia by Governor-General Michael Jeffery. Rudd was the first Labor Prime Minister in over a decade, and the first ever to make no mention of the Monarch when taking his oath of office. He also became only the second Queenslander to lead his party to a federal election victory (the first being Andrew Fisher in 1910) and was the first Prime Minister since the Second World War not to have come from either New South Wales or Victoria.

Early initiatives of the Rudd Government included the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, a Parliamentary Apology to the Stolen Generations and the 2020 Summit.

During his first two years in office, Rudd set records for popularity in Newspoll opinion polling, maintaining very high approval ratings. By 2010, however, Rudd's approval ratings had began to drop significantly, with controversies arising over the management of the financial crisis, the delay of the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, policies on asylum seekers and a debate over a proposed "super profits" tax on the mining industry.

The United States diplomatic cables leaks revealed that Robert McCallum, the former US Ambassador to Australia, described Rudd as a "control freak" and "a micro-manager", obsessed with "managing the media cycle rather than engaging in collaborative decision making". Diplomats also criticised Rudd's foreign policy record and considered Rudd's "mis-steps" largely arose from his propensity to make "snap announcements without consulting other countries or within the Australian Government".

On 23 June 2010, following lengthy media speculation, and after it had become apparent that Rudd had lost the support of many Labor MPs, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard publicly asked that a leadership election be held. Rudd announced a leadership election for the following day.