Gillard Government also polarised: approval ratings of Gillard and Abbott both improved following the speech. Julia Gillard mounted a leadership challenge against Kevin Rudd as leader of the Australian Labor Party and Prime Minister of Australia in June 2010. Rudd remained within the government, initially as a backbencher. Following the 2010 election, Gillard appointed Rudd as Foreign Minister in her minority government. The unusual circumstances of Rudd's replacement by his own party prior to completion of his first term in office, the subsequent circumstances of Labor operating without an outright Parliamentary majority, persistent two-party-preferred polling results favouring the Liberal-National opposition, and some
Julia Gillard February 2012. Rudd told the media "I can only serve as Foreign Minister if I have the confidence of Prime Minister Gillard and her senior ministers" after Gillard failed to repudiate cabinet ministers who publicly criticised Rudd and his tenure as Prime Minister. The situation had been further exacerbated by the revelation on "Four Corners" that Gillard's staff wrote her victory speech for the 2010 leadership election two weeks prior to her challenge, contradicting Gillard's earlier claims that she had only resolved to challenge Rudd the day before the vote. This revelation caused particular conflict between Labor factions to surface,