Julia Gillard become chief of staff to John Brumby, the leader of the Labor Party in Victoria. This preceded her own entry into federal politics. Gillard was first elected to the House of Representatives at the 1998 federal election for the seat of Lalor. Following the 2001 election, she was elected to Shadow Cabinet. When Kevin Rudd was elected as party leader and Leader of the Opposition in December 2006, Gillard was elected unopposed as his deputy. Upon Labor's victory at the 2007 election, she became the first female Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, and was made Minister for Education, Minister for
Gillard Government Parliamentary member of the ALP Right Faction, nominated the government's handling of the way in which Rudd had "introduced the debate" about the Resource Super Profits Tax as one of the main considerations which had led to a shift in support from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard as leader of the party. After becoming Prime Minister, Gillard cancelled the Rudd Government's controversial $40 million advertising campaign supporting its mining super profits tax and called on miners to withdraw their own media campaign against the tax. Gillard pledged to re-negotiate the tax proposal and a revised Minerals Resource Rent Tax was