Julia Gillard & Julie Bishop: A Tale of Australia’s Top Female Politicians (VIDEOS & PHOTOS)

All eyes during the Sept 7 federal election in Australia were on the two male protagonists - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Coalition leader Tony Abbott.

With the clear loss of the Australian Labor Party in the polls, party members are blaming the infighting for their debacle. Some members are now asking themselves if they made the wrong decision in supporting Mr Rudd instead of then Prime Minister and ALP leader Julia Gillard in the leadership spill.

While Ms Gillard kept her part of the deal for the loser to exit from politics permanently, another female politician is flexing now her political muscles following the victory of the Liberals.

Former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks blamed on Tuesday incoming Foreign Minister Julie Bishop for his removal as Australia's consul-general to New York before he could official begin office. Mr Bracks described his sacking as a petty and vindictive move on the part of Ms Bishop.

Ms Gillard appointed Mr Bracks in May despite the opposition from the Coalition for not being consulted about the appointment even if the PM then was aware of a possible change of government because of an approaching federal election.

The move highlights the power that Ms Bishop started to exercise even before officially being sworn to office as Foreign Minister. Even if Ms Gillard is out of the political scene now, her appointment of Mr Bracks indicates shades of a Julia vs Julie battle.

Although Ms Gillard broke the glass ceiling for Australian female politicians, comparisons with Ms Bishop couldn't be helped because they both had shared being deputy party leaders in ALP and Liberal, respectively.

So IBT-Australia prepared a Tale of the Tape for the two female politicians as seen below.

From the table above, one could see the parallel in so many ways between the two strong women. The two even share a common school - the University of Adelaide where Julie got her degree and where Julia once studied.

However, despite being younger by 6 years, it seems that Ms Gillard's political career moved at a faster paced and she has held the record of being the country's first female deputy prime minister.

Given that Ms Bishop is the deputy leader of the Liberal party, she should have automatically been appointed deputy PM in the same way that Wayne Swan was appointed deputy PM by Ms Gillard, but there has been so far no announcement yet from Mr Abbott about that matter.

If the incoming PM would appoint Ms Bishop as deputy PM, she would then become the second female to hold such as position. However, if he would not, it might lead to speculations that Mr Abbott could indeed be afraid of powerful women, confirming the misogynist label that Ms Gillard made on him in Parliament.

Is Mr Abbott afraid a repeat of what happened in ALP in 2010 when the female deputy PM led an uprising and change in party leadership? Will Ms Bishop follow the footstep of Ms Gillard, despite coming from different parties, and lay claim to being the second female PM of Australia?