Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and Julia Gillard. In both cases, they succeeded incumbent Prime Ministers who lost the support of their party caucus mid-term and their election as party leader preceded their predecessor's resignations and their subsequent appointments as Prime Minister. Frank Forde, who had been deputy Labor leader when John Curtin died, was interim Prime Minister between 6 and 13 July 1945, when a leadership ballot took place that elected Ben Chifley as Curtin's successor. In November 2007, when the Australian Labor Party won government, Julia Gillard became Australia's first female, and first foreign-born, Deputy Prime Minister. In 2017, the position became vacant
Julia Gillard Minister since Billy Hughes to have been born overseas. The leadership question remained a feature of the Gillard Government's terms in office, and amidst ongoing leadership speculation following an ABC TV "Four Corners" examination of the events leading up to Rudd's replacement which cast doubt on Gillard's insistence that she did not actively campaign for the Prime Ministership, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon spoke of Rudd's record in the following terms: "I don't think we should whitewash history – while there are a lot of very good things our government did with Kevin as prime minister, there were also a lot of