Hard times Down Under

Julia Gillard took some hard knocks when she became Australia’s first female PM in 2010. The opposition leader, Tony Abbott, gave a speech in front of “ditch the witch” posters; her clothes came under relentless scrutiny; a cartoonist depicted her naked with a strap-on dildo; shock jocks discussed ways they’d like to kill her; even Germaine Greer mocked her “big arse”. Gillard (pictured), 56, thinks it’s got better since, she told Julia Llewellyn Smith in The Times – but the pace of change is frustratingly slow. “In Australia, where distances are so long, we joke how kids chant, ‘Are we there yet?’ with monotonous regularity; I feel, ‘Are we there yet?’ too.”