Julia Gillard's Barack Obama Joke: Australian PM Says She Faces More Prejudices

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard holds a media conference after winning a leadership challenge in Canberra, Australia, Monday, Feb. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Taylor)

CANBERRA, Australia -- Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard enjoys joking with President Barack Obama that she faces more prejudices as a childless, unmarried, atheist woman than he does as an African-American, a newspaper and a government colleague said Monday.

Gillard revealed the inside joke in a speech at a private fundraising dinner in Sydney last week, The Sydney Morning Herald reported, citing unnamed guests.

"I'm good mates with Barack Obama," Gillard was quoted as saying at the 40-table dinner attended by most of her ministers, business leaders and representatives of interest groups.

"I tell him, 'You think it's tough being African-American? Try being me. Try being an atheist, childless, single woman as prime minister.'"

She often makes the joke with Obama when they meet and discuss the prejudices they experience, the newspaper said.

One of the dinner guests, government minister Chris Evans, confirmed that the comments were made "in jest."

"A little light humor ... was used to compare her challenges with those of President Obama," Evans said.

Gillard's office said it would not confirm comments made in a private speech.

Gillard, 50, is Australia's first woman prime minister, the first prime minister to take an affirmation of office instead of swearing on a Bible and the first to share the official residence with a common-law partner.

Her opponents have accused her failing to understand the concerns of families because of her decision not to have children. She has also been criticized for failing to marry her partner, former hair dresser Tim Mathieson.

Protesters demonstrating against her government have been accused of sexism in their chants, including "Ditch the Witch."

Comments

[Meldy1]

01:37 PM on 05/13/2012

They are the best of friends that I know of...

[Chris Herz]

11:39 AM on 04/08/2012

I oppose Ms Gillard because she sucks up to US militarism and corporate corruption. Not because she is a woman.

[clearasmud]

09:23 AM on 04/08/2012

The have GOPer type haters in Autralia also.

[Equinator]

07:32 AM on 04/08/2012

An article that is much ado about nothing.

[peter010908]

02:20 AM on 04/08/2012

Australia has consistently been voted one of the best countries in the world to live in. The economy if the best in the developed world, high level of education, free health care, low crime rate and poverty. Their main city Sydney has been voted best city in the world a number of times.

And all that from a country which is secular and run by and atheist.

[Lilac Templar]

08:43 AM on 07/11/2012

You should try living here - it's a nightmare.

[WeAlwaysKnewIt]

07:40 PM on 04/07/2012

She's entitled to make comparison about political life. Men do it. She's got gumption and sticks to the point. I understand her appeal. Hillary Clinton should recruit her to speak and lay down a foundation for the 2016 election. Women in America need more role models in politics.

[Pediego]

03:02 PM on 04/06/2012

Australia seems somewhat more civilized than America IMO. However, atheist, childless and single are all choices. It's quite another thing to be born black or female in America. Augusta is still closed to women and blacks really, so we are still a bit behind. So Obama really has it tougher than you ma'am PM, I say.

[french queen13]

09:48 PM on 04/07/2012

Don't forget she was making a joke - but the point is that if she were male, childless and atheist, the media and opposition here wouldn't give a damn. She's female, and they attack her as 'deliberately barren', or for her hair colour, her accent, her body shape, her clothing choices, her beliefs - a range of things that DO NOT get used as ammunition with men. I don't think she was seriously saying she's worse off - we have racism here, yes, but nothing like as vile as what gets thrown around in the US, I think - but I can well understand her venting a little about it. The way she's treated is disgraceful.

[Lilac Templar]

08:43 AM on 07/11/2012

She's a pig.

[peter010908]

02:23 AM on 04/08/2012

I think you missed the joke.

[Haitiana4Obama]

02:23 PM on 04/06/2012

Nothing offensive at all here...

[jsehgal]

11:18 AM on 04/06/2012

RE:" ...Try being an atheist, childless, single woman as prime minister..."

Well, you haven't tried doing that in America.

[Ansdlmol]

12:57 PM on 04/06/2012

Nor tried being a black, atheist, childless, single woman as prime minister in either Australia or the USA. Times "are a changin" but not that much.

[SouthernYankeeBelle]

02:34 PM on 04/06/2012

Well the one thing that will bring hate in both countries is atheists. I'm surprised she was elected. We have come pretty far. I do believe you can be an atheist and still be a good person.

[Bringbackethics]

11:01 AM on 04/06/2012

Well at least she wasn't in blackface

[DawnK]

05:35 PM on 04/06/2012

She didn't say anything wrong.

[saldog]

09:49 PM on 04/05/2012

Bust out the race or whatever card whenever possible. Please spare me. You were both elected by a majority vote with millions of voters casting ballots. It might be that the citizens do not like your policies. Also, it is one thing to run and another to govern... no matter who you are.

[GSR]

02:32 AM on 04/06/2012

It was a joke for christ's sake

[DawnK]

05:35 PM on 04/06/2012

It must be someone on the right. They love the term "bust out the race card".

[french queen13]

09:49 PM on 04/07/2012

First, she was making a joke, second, you don't know anything of the ugly sexism that gets thrown at her constantly.

[jonny dipstick]

03:50 PM on 04/05/2012

In all fairness she does face way more prejudice, but its mostly from me. I am just having fun but she is so serious. One day when she figures this out, we will be friends and all have a good laugh.

[Equinator]

07:39 AM on 04/08/2012

Continuing to make fun of someone that does not see the humor in it is called bullying.

[jonny dipstick]

08:22 AM on 04/08/2012

I prefer to think of it as teaching them about my warped sense of humor. A learning event of sorts.

[Nitebug]

04:21 AM on 04/05/2012

Now if we can just elect an American president like her. I'll probably never see it in my lifetime.

[Daniel Torrens]

08:08 AM on 05/04/2012

You want a President whose party can, and has not produced a single budget which would bring it into the black over the past 20 years? Who imposes extremely unpopular taxes?

[oldwolf49]

03:04 AM on 04/05/2012

I've been to Australia, I like Australia, they do have issue with women who are independent, honest, don't feel they need to be married/with child/and especially atheist. Not sure how she was elected with that resume but I like her.

[Raymond Strand]

11:03 AM on 04/05/2012

Because Prime Ministers aren't elected they're selected from the party.

[oldwolf49]

04:55 PM on 04/05/2012

Just like presidents here, who's the popular girl?!?!?!?!

[OnLesAura]

09:53 PM on 04/05/2012

Actually, a large factor is that Australia has never been a particularly religious country - from the first time Europeans sailed into Botany Bay (Sydney) until independence in 1900 (1901?), the people of religion largely were confined to the missionary preachers and their families, and seen (often rightly) as hypocritical do-gooders enforcing the heavy hand of the crown; Oz was first populated as a English penal colony starting in 1789, sending out the dreck and scum of the British Isles (not incidentally the year of the storming of the Paris Bastille, beginning the French revolution - monarchs all over Europe were terrified, the more rabble-rousers you can be rid of, the better). Subsequent setllement wasn't notably pious. Compared to religious passions, movements and involved histories in America and Europe, Oz is a fairly plain canvas, if not totally blank slate. And while Oz is increasingly diverse ethnically, it is still overwhelmingly of white British Isles stock, who like their 21st century European counterparts, tend to be only moderately or symbolically/culturally religious, agnostic or atheist. And even Oz's large traditional immigrant groups - Greeks, Italians, Lebanese - have gotten very secular.

Would love to see her American equivalent in the White House !

[Reality always bites]

11:50 AM on 04/09/2012

What- No Aborigines?
Entirely populated by hypocritical missionaries and criminals?
Dreck, scum and rabble rousers?
How soon we forget.

[BooTay]

11:34 AM on 04/04/2012

Good grief. Why can't bloody ne'er-do-well busybodies just live and let live?
They must have incredibly meaningless and uninspired existences to constantly stick their twisted noses in other people's religion, vel non; racial status; emotional commitments, etc.

[Red45]

01:11 AM on 04/05/2012

She's Australia's Prime Minister and you call her a ne'er-do-well busybody? Seriously?

[oldwolf49]

03:02 AM on 04/05/2012

Agreed.

[BooTay]

07:36 AM on 04/06/2012

Actually, my remarks were not directed at the Australian P.M. But, nice try. Is your capacity for basic reading comprehension compromised?

[tarby]

06:58 PM on 04/07/2012

One of her opponents called her "voluntarily barren" can you imagine???!!!!
Happily he got a pasting for it, but what a thing to say! She has also been criticized by the right for not carrying a handbag!
I agree with you.

[BooTay]

01:45 AM on 04/08/2012

There's absolutely no depth of ridiculousness to which people like that won't sink. On the bright side, it's how they differentiate themselves from the sane population! :-)