Australia's new Prime Minister Julia Gillard attends a news conference after a leadership ballot at the Federal Parliament House
In Jacqueline Kent's 2009 biography of her, Julia Gillard, then Australia's Deputy
Prime Minister, is quoted as saying "Anyone who thinks that my being PM [Prime
Minister] is inevitable knows nothing whatever about politics." But, less than a year later, the subject of The Making of Julia Gillard is just that — the holder of the highest political office in the land, and the first woman to take the position. "First woman, maybe first redhead," the 48-year-old foreign-born lawyer joked with reporters after being sworn in on June 24.

Her personal life won't stir enthusiasm among conservative upholders of traditional family values. Australia's new leader comes from a Baptist background but describes herself as "not religious." She is unmarried, although she does have what Australians call a "de facto" (live in) partner — a former hairdresser and hair products salesman,
Tim Mathieson. Gillard is also childless, for which she was outrageously attacked by Liberal Party senator Bill Heffernan, who told a newspaper in 2007 that she was not fit for office because she was "deliberately barren."

(See pictures of Australia.)

To her supporters, however, Gillard ushers in a new, straightforward Labor government, in contrast to the wonkish approach of her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, whom she ousted after a leadership challenge. "Kevin Rudd's preference for complex policy meant they spent far more time explaining how their solutions work than they spent explaining to the population why their solutions were necessary," says Richard
Dennis, executive director of the Australian Institute, a Canberra-based think tank. "I

think she will distance herself from his style and substance."

In fact, she has already started to do so. On the very day she took her oath of office,

Gillard offered an olive branch to