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
Julia Gillard leadership, telling the media that the Rudd Government had entered a "period of paralysis" and that Rudd's work patterns were "difficult and chaotic". Upon her election by the Labor Party, Gillard said that she wouldn't move into The Lodge until she was elected Prime Minister in her own right, instead choosing to divide her time between a flat in Canberra and her home in Altona, a western suburb of Melbourne. Gillard moved into The Lodge on 26 September 2010. As well as being the first female Prime Minister, and the first never to have married, Gillard is the first Prime