HOST: Madam Prime Minister, hello madam.
PM: Hello, I'm not sure madam's necessary.
HOST: I was going to ask you what are people calling you in interviews?
PM: They're calling me Prime Minister, sometimes they're calling me Julia, hopefully they're not calling me anything else other than that.
HOST: Ok, alright.
HOST: Look we're going to play a song, but I feel it's inappropriate because like here you are, finally.
HOST: Do you mind waiting for a couple of minutes?
PM: I can listen to a song.
HOST: Ah good.
HOST: Are you rocking it with this David Guetta, Fergie thing? I'll play it to ya, you tell us if you like it, Julia Gillard, madam Prime Minister next.
[Song plays]
HOST: David Guetta and Fergie, No Gettin Over you this morning here at 2Day FM, you're on the air Kyle, Jackie-O and the new Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, is joining us. What did you think of that song, is it your thing?
PM: Well I wouldn't have quite said that, you know, I'm a kind of really bad 80s dag I'm sorry.
HOST: We play a lot of that music here.
HOST: You'd get on well with our new newsreader here Emma. Hey congratulations, how is it being the first female Prime Minister of the country, is that good for you or does the female part not really stress you it's just, it's about being the Prime Minister.
PM: Well to use your language I think the female part doesn't really stress me, it is about being Prime Minister and obviously having the opportunity to do the things you think need to be done for hardworking people around the country. I think we've been a pretty good Government but we need to fix some problems to get a renewed focus on making sure the economy's strong and making sure people can get the services they need when they need them.
HOST: Do you know when I found out that you'd done the coup?
PM: When did you find out?
HOST: I was in the Los Angeles airport and I think there was what some regional folk that were flying back as well, because we were all lined up, because I'm a gate sitter, I don't do the, I don't sit at the lounge. I was sitting at the gate, some bloke goes 'hey have you heard Julia Gillard's in charge, Rudd's out, Gilliard's in?'
HOST: That's the text message I got.
HOST: And it was the talk of the Australia line, someone's like 'I haven't heard anything about that' and there was like a big chatter I was just listening to everybody. And I knew that it had happened, obviously, being like a huge media icon, I'm across all of these things-
PM: Of course you are.
HOST: Well for me it came out of the blue, what about for you was this a, was this something that you know, I mean for us it just happened all of a sudden, we had no idea-
HOST: Even The Australian didn't know the day before.
HOST: What about from your end though?
PM: Events did move very quickly last week so I can understand that there were people in lines in airports going 'what's going on, what have you heard' and people glued to Sky TV and all the rest of it, glue to their radios, look I can understand that. It did happen quickly and I had to make a very tough decision, obviously I'd been Kevin Rudd's deputy, I'd been very loyal to him, but I had to take a tough decision that I thought was in the nation's interest and so you have seen the change from last week. And now my focus is, you know, methodically, one footstep in front of the other, doing the things we need to do to get the Government back on track and make sure we're doing the right thing by Australians.
HOST: You seem genuine and I was making the point this morning that men are notorious throughout history of just saying anything just to get away with having to deal with any issues, and women if they say they're going to do something, they usually do it. Is that what you're going to be, like I would, forget the first female Prime Minister, the first Prime Minister in history that actually does what they say they're going to do, that would be a surprise for everybody.
PM: Well I'm going to try and do that, look, you know I think when you're doing something as complicated as being Prime Minister, there are days when people are gonna look at what you're doing and go, that's fantastic and there are going to be other days when they're gonna look at what you're doing and say 'why on earth did she do that?' So I'm not going to try and promise people that everything's going to be, you know, smooth sailing and they're gonna be applauding at the end of each day, this job's too tough for that, but I'll be trying my best and trying my best to be as frank as I can with the Australian people about the challenges we face, the great strengths of this country, it's a fantastic place, but there are some things we can do better and we should do better and we'll be working on that.
HOST: What are those things, what are the main things that you want to change and that you think we can do better?
HOST: You have to have a to-do list? All women have a to-do list.
HOST: What's on the top of the list?
PM: I do have a to-do list, my to-do list includes working our way through this Resources Super Profits Tax issue which we are doing-
HOST: We don't know anything about that-
PM: Right, as we speak. We've obvious got a set of things to do to make sure we're tackling climate change, I know a lot of people have been disappointed with what's happened with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, we've got to do some work on helping the nation face up to climate change, and close to my heart, I mean I'm, you know, a migrant kid who came to this country and when I look back on what's made my life obviously a fantastic family, great mum and dad have been big, big parts of my life. But the other thing that's been a huge part of my life is getting a quality education, and I'd really like us to be able to say to each other, truthfully and genuinely, that every kid, no matter where they're from in this country, no matter of the circumstances of their birth, who their parents are, they're going to go to a great school and get a great education.
HOST: We have a couple of people who want to ask you some questions, Kristy had one particular question that was important to her, hi Kristy.
CALLER: Hi Jackie, hi Kyle, g'day Julia, congratulations by the way.
PM: Thank you Kristy.
CALLER: I just wanted if you're chasing I guess more votes particularly for the Labor Party, would you consider legalising gay marriage?
PM: We've got, I may be disappointing you now Kristy but this is the frank answer, we've got very clear Labor Party policy on this and won't be changing, that we believe they Marriage Act is appropriate in its current form, that it's recognising that marriage is between a man and a woman, but we have as a Government taken steps to equalise treatment for gay couples in things that Government does like social security benefits and the like.
HOST: But that's the Party, what do you personally feel, I mean is that your own personal view as well?
PM: Look that is my view, I think that that's, that's where we're at as a community now and I think it's appropriate that for these very sensitive issues that we're reflecting community views.
HOST: Maria, now we spoke to you earlier this morning about your father who is in hospital at the moment.
CALLER: That's right.
HOST: As promised we're putting you on with the Prime Minister.
HOST: Now Maria it's not the Prime Minister's fault, she has no idea about your story.
HOST: It's more to do with the hospital system.
HOST: Just run it through bullet point form.
CALLER: What happened was Dad was taken to ambulance, left in emergency for 24 hours, not given his medication yesterday, he's sick, he's a cancer patient, he's a heart patient, and I'm ringing up to ask questions what's wrong with my Dad, my kids weren't allowed to go in a see him because they were so busy. Something has to be done, he's 76 and it's not fair.
HOST: They can't get a doctor to see him, you know obviously there's an issue with the hospital system.
PM: Yeah look I 'm really sorry to hear that that's happened to Maria and her Dad and you know I've got my parents in their early 80s and we do worry what's going to happen to them next and you know when they need the health system they really need it. There are things we need to do to improve the hospitals, we particularly need to improve what's happening in our emergency departments. Part of the health changes we're in the process of rolling out, and they're going to take some time, got to be frank about that, you don't fix these things overnight, but part of the health changes is making sure that there's a four hour system in emergency so people are seen in the clinically recommended times and people are seen within four hours.
HOST: Oh that's good.
HOST: Yeah, rather than, well her dad was waiting you know for 24 hours and still no one had seen him so that obviously is a big problem.
PM: Yeah that would be dreadful for him and really stressful for everybody else.
HOST: No what, you only need a couple of people in that emergency ward to have rung in sick that day and it throws the whole thing into chaos as well.
PM: Part of the problem here, or a really big explanation of it is we're short of doctors, we don't have enough nurses, that's because of cutbacks, not under this Government, under the last Government, in fact Tony Abbott can talk to you about that because he was Health Minister.
HOST: No we don't talk to the Opposition because we only talk to the winners.
PM: Right, but you know I think everybody would recognise you can't make a doctor or a nurse overnight so we are making more of them but we need those more doctors and nurses to come on stream.
HOST: I have two questions, you might find them to be not high on your priority list.
PM: I'll do my best Kyle.
HOST: But Mr Rudd, promised us he would invite us to Kirribilli House for a barbecue, never happened, I brought it up several occasions.
HOST: Well it was promised before he became, he said when I become Prime Minister, then the barbecue will happen-
HOST: Yeah and he didn't invite us over and we kept asking-
HOST: We kept reminding-
HOST: And then he just never came back and then we would ring the press secretary they'd just say yeah he's scheduled to come on, and that just dragged on for like a year.
PM: Alright look I will review this promise but Kyle and Jackie you would know my form with a barbecue is not that great. You've probably seen me on TV chucking sausages around on the floor, but we'll see what we can do.
HOST: And they only other thing, is will there be any change to the law on redheaded jokes?
PM: Ah no you'll still, you'll still be able to make redheaded jokes but expect to get a response when you do, right from the top.
HOST: I think you'll do a good job, you seem like a cool, like a cool lady.
PM: Oh well thank you for that.
HOST: You're welcome.
HOST: Thanks for talking to us.
HOST: Good luck with it. I mean you're not moving into Kirribilli they say?
HOST: Yeah.
PM: Look I'm sort of happy living where I live and during the second half of the year the election's due so we'll have the election and obviously I think it's going to be tough, it's going to be close fought, but we'll see what happens and I'll be asking people to renew their trust in me and the Government and if they do then we'll make all the appropriate moves at that point.
HOST: And do you think that'll be sometime soon?
PM: Look the election's due second half of the year, we've got some things we need to do as a Government so that's my focus at the moment.
HOST: Ok.
HOST: Yeah we're looking at the moment for, we're filming this X-Factor show you would have heard about that, it's a big deal.
PM: It is a big deal.
HOST: Now we're looking to house these kids, do you reckon we could cut a deal where we could rent that joint off you? Put the kids in there?
PM: I think that's going to have to be a no, sorry about that.
HOST: The first thing we ask is a no.
HOST: At least she told you no, didn't make a false promise
HOST: Thank you, nice to talk to you. Can I do the madam Prime Minister thing? I like it.
PM: You can if you like.
HOST: Seems very Margaret Thatcher, I love it. Thank you nice to chat.
PM: Bye bye.