Gillard Government to our alliance with the United States, the international community understands this, our friends and allies understand this, and our enemies understand this too". On her first day as Prime Minister, Gillard reassured her position towards the war to President Barack Obama of the United States. Prime Minister Gillard made an official visit to Afghanistan, in October 2010. There she met members of the Australian Defence Force in Tarin Kowt, and had discussions with President Hamid Karzai. This visit was part of her first international trip as Prime Minister. In April 2012, Prime Minister Gillard announced that her government would
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