Parliament Gift Shop Runs Out of Julia Gillard Souvenir Coffee Mugs
Julia Gillard is no longer Australia's prime minister for one week now, but it seems tnat she has gained popularity after she left politics. One proof is that barely a week after she lost the leadership vote on June 27, souvenir coffee mugs with her face on its sold out at the Parliament House gift shop.
Original source: Canberra Times
Price at $20 each, the items became bestsellers that by mid Wednesday afternoon, the entire stock was gone and the staff of the shop had to order new mugs expected to be back on the shelf next week. Printed on the mug was the fact that she was Australia's 27th PM with the years 2010-2013 included.
Ms Gillard had also moved her MP office from the large suite she used to occupy to a smaller backbencher's quarters, although it has been observed that the office remains unused and no one is answering phone calls.
She has also left the Lodge, but outgoing U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich thinks the former PM would still have a national role to place, similar to when Mr Rudd was appointed foreign affairs minister after he was deposed as PM in 2010.
"She made a great impression on myself and on President Obama and other leaders in the United States ... I know she will continue to play an important role in the U.S.-Australia relationship and continue to be a respected figure in the world stage," the envoy said, quoted by the Queanbeyan Age.
Former PM Jim Scullin, who lost the 1931 election, opined that Ms Gillard was destroyed by the pressures of a hung parliament and the dysfunctional nature of the Labor Party.
Mr Scullin said that she apparently did not listen to his advice when he retired from politics in 2005 for Ms Gillard should never deal with Mr Rudd. He described the current PM as a non-Labor man addicted to media attention and leadership destabilization, and the product of a Queensland Country Party family with instincts more focused on self-promotion than social justice.
His remarks appear to match the description of a NSW state minister that Mr Rudd has an out-of-control ego, while a behavioural therapist was quoted in a book about Ms Gillard's fall that the second-time PM is bordering on being delusional.
