Julia Gillard day as prime minister, Gillard reassured US president Barack Obama of Australia's continuing support for the military campaign in Afghanistan, which was then in its ninth year of operation. She visited Afghanistan on 2 October 2010, meeting with members of the Australian Defence Force in Tarinkot, and President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. The visit marked her first foreign trip as prime minister. Following the visit, A parliamentary debate was conducted for four sitting weeks of parliament in November 2010, with the agreement between Gillard and Abbott that it would be necessary for Australian soldiers to stay in Afghanistan and prevent
Gillard Government Parliamentary member of the ALP Right Faction, nominated the government's handling of the way in which Rudd had "introduced the debate" about the Resource Super Profits Tax as one of the main considerations which had led to a shift in support from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard as leader of the party. After becoming Prime Minister, Gillard cancelled the Rudd Government's controversial $40 million advertising campaign supporting its mining super profits tax and called on miners to withdraw their own media campaign against the tax. Gillard pledged to re-negotiate the tax proposal and a revised Minerals Resource Rent Tax was