AUSTRALIA'S NEXT LEADER SET TO BE BRITISH BORN?

SYDNEY - Australia is to have a British-born prime minister, whatever the outcome of the general election expected to take place next month.

Welsh-born Labor premier Julia Gillard, 48, will go head-to-head with London-born Liberal leader Tony Abbott on August 21.

• Gillard, a coalminer's daughter, was brought to Australia from the Vale of Glamorgan in 1966 when she was five because doctors advised the warmer climate would be better for the chest infection she had.
• Abbott, 52, whose father served in the RAF, was taken to Australia in 1960 at the age of two when his expatriate parents decided to return to Sydney. While he was growing up in the harbour city, Gillard was growing up in Adelaide.
• The office of prime minister was created in Australia in 1901 and only four of its incumbents were born in the United Kingdom, all of them taking office in early years of the last century.
• Twenty-two years after his parents had brought him to Australia from London, Abbott returned to the UK as an Australian Rhodes scholar at Oxford.
• Abbott, the father of three daughters, started studying for the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1983, only to quit, resulting in him earning the nickname of The Mad Monk.
• He has always been a controversial figure — just a few weeks ago he raised eyebrows when he was photographed in a lifesaver's uniform of skimpy swimming trunks and cap.

The straight-talking Abbott was a rank outsider for the opposition leadership but pulled off a major shock last December when he won by just one vote to take over the flailing Liberal/National party coalition.
Source:Gulf News