Julia Gillard Following her defeat in the leadership vote on 26 June 2013, Gillard congratulated Rudd on his win and announced that she would immediately tender her resignation as Prime Minister to the Governor-General, Quentin Bryce. She also announced, in keeping with her pledge before the leadership vote, that she would not re-contest her seat of Lalor at the upcoming election, and thus would retire from politics. In her final speech, she reflected on the honour of being the first female head of government in Australia and expressed confidence for the future of women leaders in Australia: Gillard's resignation as Prime Minister
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