Unlikely For Julie Bishop To Be 2nd Female PM Of Australia

The sudden slump in Prime Minister Tony Abbott's popularity had more than half off Australians polled believe that he does not stand a chance of keeping his post as head of state in the 2016 election.

But despite Foreign Minister Julie Bishop appearing to be a good candidate to replace Mr Abbott, political pundits are asking if the country is ready for a second female PM after Julia Gillard.

Newdaily.com noted the vital role that Bishop played in the aftermath of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 hit and crash in Ukraine as she coordinated with the Ukrainian and Russian governments in retrieving the bodies of dead citizens aboard the ill-fated flight as well as securing safe passage to investigators and access to the crash site.

While Mr Abbott threatened to shirtfront Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit hosted in Brisbane, but failed to do so, Bishop got Mr Putin to agree to an October meeting in Italy to secure access from the separatist via the Russian president.

Surveys reflect Bishop's popularity among Aussie voters when she was declared best-performing minister in the Abbott cabinet and recognised as the third-most well-known minister next to the PM and Treasurer Joe Hockey. A new opinion poll placed her on equal footing with Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister.

It would also be recalled that when Mr Abbott was still Opposition leader, Bishop was the party's deputy leader, but after the September 2013 election, the newly elected PM gave her instead the Foreign Affairs portfolio rather than name her deputy prime minister as is the political tradition.

This led to speculations if Mr Abbott was afraid that Bishop would do a Gillard, which was unseat then PM Kevin Rudd via a party vote.

Newdaily pointed out that Liberal PMs traditionally are from the Aussie states of New South Wales or Victoria, while Bishop is from Western Australia. Given that tradition, it said the ones with better chances of replacing Mr Abbott are Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, although it noted that Hockey was the leading candidate, until he came up with a budget that further caused the decline of voter support for the Coalition.

Another factor against Liberals are they aren't keen on female leaders, unlike Labor which had made history by giving Australia its first - though short-lived - female PM. The proof of this is the apparent bad relationship between Liberal legislators and Mr Abbott's female chief of staff.

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On Wednesday, Bishop topped the list of the most intriguing people made by Who magazine for its Best and Worst of 2014 issue. Liberal MPs may indeed be intrigued if Bishop does a Gillard and becomes PM. Then, she will likely elicit more intrigues from male legislators as like what happened to the country's first woman PM.