Julia Gillard

She is the second of two daughters born to John Oliver Gillard (1929–2012) and the former Moira Mackenzie (born 1928); her older sister Alison was born in 1958.

Gillard's father was born in Cwmgwrach, but was of predominantly English descent; he worked as a psychiatric nurse.

Her mother was born in Barry, and is of distant Scottish and Irish descent; she worked in a Salvation Army nursing home.

After Gillard suffered from bronchopneumonia as a child, her parents were advised it would aid her recovery if they were to live in a warmer climate.

Julia Eileen Gillard (born 29 September 1961) is an Australian former politician who served as the 27th prime minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013.

Gillard was born on 29 September 1961 in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales.

Born in Barry, Wales, Gillard migrated with her family to Adelaide in South Australia in 1966.

She attended Mitcham Demonstration School and Unley High School.

This led the family to migrate to Australia in 1966, settling in Adelaide, South Australia.

The Gillard family's first month in Australia was spent in the Pennington Hostel, a now-closed migrant facility located in Pennington, South Australia.

In 1974, eight years after they arrived, Gillard and her family became Australian citizens.

She began an arts degree at the University of Adelaide, during which she was president of the Adelaide University Union from 1981 to 1982.

In her second year at the university, Gillard was introduced to politics by the daughter of a state Labor minister.

Accordingly, she joined the Labor Club and became involved in a campaign to fight federal education budget cuts.

Gillard went on to study at the University of Adelaide, but switched to the University of Melbourne in 1982, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1986 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1989.

Gillard cut short her courses in Adelaide in 1982, and moved to Melbourne to work with the Australian Union of Students.

During this time, she was president of the Australian Union of Students from 1983 to 1984.

In 1983, she became the second woman to lead the Australian Union of Students, serving until the organisation's discontinuation in 1984.

In 1987, Gillard joined the law firm Slater & Gordon, eventually becoming a partner in 1990, specialising in industrial law.

In 1996, she became chief of staff to John Brumby, the Leader of the Opposition in Victoria.

Gillard was first elected to the House of Representatives at the 1998 election for the seat of Lalor.

As a result, Gillard held dual citizenship until she renounced her British citizenship prior to entering the Australian parliament in 1998.

Gillard attended Mitcham Demonstration School before going on to Unley High School.

Following the 2001 election, she was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet.

In December 2006, Gillard became the running mate of Kevin Rudd in a successful leadership challenge to Kim Beazley, becoming deputy leader of the opposition.

She held office as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), having previously served as the 13th deputy prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010, under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

She is the first and only woman to hold either office in Australian history.

After Labor's victory at the 2007 election, she was appointed as the deputy prime minister of Australia, and was also given the roles of Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and Minister for Social Inclusion.

On 24 June 2010, after Rudd lost internal support within the Labor Party and resigned as leader, Gillard was elected unopposed as his replacement in a leadership spill, and was sworn-in as prime minister.

She led Labor through the 2010 election weeks later, which saw the first hung parliament since 1940.

Gillard was able to form a minority government with the support of the Greens and three independents.

During its term of office, the Gillard government introduced the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), the Gonski funding, oversaw the initial rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN), and controversially implemented a carbon pricing scheme, which was widely perceived as a breach of a pre-election commitment.

Gillard's premiership was often undermined by party instability and numerous scandals, including the AWU affair and the Health Services Union expenses affair.

Gillard and Rudd became embroiled in a lengthy political rivalry, resulting in Gillard losing the leadership of the Labor Party back to him in a June 2013 leadership spill.

Her resignation as prime minister took effect the next day, and she announced her retirement from politics.

In the years following her retirement, Gillard has been a visiting professor at the University of Adelaide, the Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for Universal Education, and has been the chair of the Global Partnership for Education since 2014 and as the chair of Beyond Blue since 2017.

She released her memoir, My Story, in September 2014.

In April 2021, she became chair of the Wellcome Trust, succeeding Eliza Manningham-Buller.

Although Gillard often ranked poorly in opinion polls as prime minister, her premiership has been more favourably received in retrospect.

Political experts often place her in the middle-to-upper tier of Australian prime ministers.