Julia Gillard took effect the following day, upon the swearing in of Rudd, and she made her final appearance in the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. Her parliamentary service ended at the dissolution of the Parliament on 5 August. By the conclusion of her tenure, Gillard overtook Gough Whitlam as the 14th longest–serving Prime Minister of Australia, having served in the position for three full years. She also became the longest–serving Prime Minister since John Howard's electoral loss in 2007; a record which has not been exceeded by successive Prime Ministers Rudd, Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, or , current Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Julia Gillard Governor-General Quentin Bryce, with Swan being sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister. The members of the Rudd Ministry, with the exception of Rudd himself who returned to the backbenches, subsequently became the members of the First Gillard Ministry. Later that day, in her first press conference as Prime Minister, Gillard said that at times the Rudd Government "went off the tracks", and "[I] came to the view that a good Government was losing its way". Gillard offered wider explanation of her motivations for replacing Rudd during the 2012 Labor leadership spill in which Rudd challenged Gillard to regain the Labor