Politics bores or frustrates many people. But if you’re a tragic follower of politics, it doesn’t get any hotter than the past 24 hours in Australia. This morning, we have a new leader, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who last night deposed our first female PM, Julia Gillard. Rewind 3 years, almost to the day, and Gillard deposed Rudd for the same leadership. Both leaders can now lay claim to having been Prime Minister in BOTH terms of this Labour government. I know it’s geeks-ville, but these are wild times in Aussie politics. Over the past three years, we’ve had a ‘hung parliament’, minority government, gender discrimination against Gillard, Gillard knifing Rudd in the dead of night, Rudd knifing Gillard last night – and through all this, a strong & growing economy which has avoided the recession the rest of the world has suffered for the past 5 years. On the other side of politics, the conservatives have many problems of their own – though they’d like us to believe otherwise (Abbot? Turnbull? Anyone?).

Julia Gillard & Kevin Rudd in Parliament.

For mine, last night, the Australian electorate got back what was unfairly taken from them by a cloak-and-dagger Labour caucus; the person they’d voted for in the first place – with all his faults and unpopularity. For the past 3 years, two-thirds of Australians have consistently wanted Rudd re-instated as Labour leader. Perhaps last night, the people had spoken.

So what of the other side of politics – and the immensely popular Malcolm Turnbull, who was knifed by the current leader Tony Abbot? These are crazy times and, just maybe, we haven’t seen the last major upheaval before the impending election. Perhaps ‘the people’ will have one more thing to say about the Liberal leadership.

Either way, it would be nice to see some policy debate. Hopefully, that’s not too much to ask.

And I do feel sorry for Gillard. But last night, her karma came knocking.

Fires out.