Australia’s Prime Minister Dumped By Labour Party On Eve Of G20

Kevin Rudd seeking to confirm his position prior to leaving for the G20 summit in Canada found his support within the party had eroded.

Rudd ‘s popularity has been falling for many months and his fight with the major mining companies appears to have tipped the balance against him. He had attempted to bring in a “super tax” on the profits gained by the likes of Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.

Rudd felt that these major miners were getting super or disproportionate profits due to the staggering growth of China and their unending appetite for basis resources such as iron ore, copper and coal.

Over the past two months the miners have waged a media war against Rudd and his attempts to implement this tax.

Rudd felt that the windfall profits being made by the miners should be taxed so that Australia’s health care system and pension fund could also benefit.

Whilst his first two years were extremely popular a number of policy hiccups over climate change and immigration issues started his popularity on a downward curve.

With an election likely later this year the Labour Party felt his leadership was compromised and put their support behind Rudd’s deputy Julia Gillard.

She now becomes Australia’s first female leader.

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Posted by Patric Beck on Jun 24 2010. Filed under Business, Featured News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry