Julia Gillard Quotes

It's a big emotional thing to do, to challenge the leadership of your political party. There is nothing pleasant about it, there's nothing fun about it. It's quite a horrible gut-wrenching process.

There is nothing that should lead you to expect bastardry of that magnitude. Hard things happen; a hard thing happened to Malcolm Turnbull, a hard thing happened to Bob Hawke, a hard thing happened Kim Beazley, a hard thing happened to Kevin Rudd, a hard thing happened to me. You can still make choices on how you conduct yourself.

This isn't about women getting unfair advantages, it's about creating a world where nobody is hemmed in by gender stereotypes, and that's better for men and for women.

The Leader of the Opposition says, 'Do something'; well he could do something himself if he wanted to deal with sexism in this parliament. He could change his behaviour, he could apologise for all his past statements and he could apologise for standing next to signs describing me as a witch and a bitch—terminology now objected to by the frontbench of the opposition. He could change standards himself if he sought to do so. But we will see none of that from the Leader of the Opposition, because on these questions he is incapable of change. He is capable of double standards but incapable of change.

I don't support the idea of a big Australia with arbitrary targets of, say, a 40 million-strong Australia or a 36 million-strong Australia. We need to stop, take a breath and develop policies for a sustainable Australia... I support a population that our environment, our water, our soil, our roads and freeways, our busses, our trains and our services can sustain.

It did seem to me that tomorrow you could wake up to anything, and that there just are no rules anymore.

I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition went outside the front of the parliament and stood next to a sign that said 'Ditch the witch'. I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition stood next to a sign that described me as a man's bitch. I was offended by those things. Misogyny, sexism, every day from this Leader of the Opposition. Every day, in every way, across the time the Leader of the Opposition has sat in that chair and I have sat in this chair, that is all we have heard from him.

It's a cute project to work on.

Here he [Abbott] is, trying to fudge one way and fudge the other; This morning he went out and accused me of a crime. Back it up or shut up.

Hindsight can give you insights about what went wrong. But only faith, reason and bravery can propel you forward.

I don't think it would have been possible ... You always have choices, yes, but I don't think there was any way of stuffing the genie back into the bottle.

I really don’t know why this wasn’t a career ending moment for Tony Abbott. Sexism is no better than racism.

I suggest Australians rush to their kitchens and check that their spoons aren't bent after that performance.

The sense of regret that we didn't need to be here. The sense of friendship lost, something very special lost, the team ability of the two of us. That was sitting very heavily on me.

You've got to gather yourself, you've got to give the speech, go see the Governor-General, do all of that. And then you get to have a few drinks with friends, so that's not that hard.