Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard: 'There is a reason the world always looks to America'

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard addresses a joint session of the US Congress 3-9-11

Andrew Malcolm
LA Times
March 10, 2011

Sometimes it takes fresh eyes to remind.

Washington, of course, knew that Julia Gillard became Australia's 27th prime minister and the first female to hold that office last June.

When Americans think of Australia, as they have during this year's awful floods, the assumption with Aussies is that we're good friends, chums, mates, having gone through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan together, even if our seasons are reversed.

Yes, yes, Gillard's the leader of Australia's Labor Party. But Tony Blair came from Britain's Labour Party and he turned into a domestic demigod in North America. Margaret Thatcher, of course. Before her, Winston Churchill.

Born in the same year of 1961 and both the offspring of immigrants to the land they now rule politically, President Obama and Gillard met during those ubiquitous G-something-or-other meetings that seem to occur in some fancy resort every six or eight weeks.

(Original here.)