Former prime minister Julia Gillard has taken a swipe at Kevin Rudd, saying a key difference in their leadership takeovers was that she spent all of her time in the lead up genuinely trying to help Labor prosper.
Speaking to Anne Summers at the Sydney Opera House on Monday, Ms Gillard made her first major public appearance since being dethroned on June 26.
When asked if her dumping was a reflection of her takeover of Mr Rudd in 2010, Ms Gillard replied it was her view that you should always ask the leader for a legitimate leadership ballot.
"To do things continuously that undermine the Labor party and the Labor government, then of course that shouldn't be done by anyone," she said.
"The key difference is every day I was deputy PM I spent all of my time doing everything I could to have the Labor government prosper."
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Ms Gillard said she intentionally stayed out of the media until recently to give Labor the "gift" of silence during the recent federal election.
She said a "perfect political storm" formed following the 2010 election that ultimately led to her being dethroned by Mr Rudd.
This included being forced to hold together a minority government, the legitimacy of which was questioned daily by a hard hitting opposition.
"You had the wildcard of gender, being the first female PM, and then internal instability in the Labor party, so it all came together to create this very difficult environment," she said.
Ms Gillard also zeroed in on Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who triggered her famous misogyny speech last October.
"I thought, `After everything I've had to see on the internet, after all the gendered abuse that I've seen in newspapers, that has been called at me across the despatch box, now of all things I've got to listen to Tony Abbott lecture me about sexism," she said.
She said while she suffered plenty of abuse from the opposition during federal parliament sessions, most of it wasn't from Mr Abbott.
"Occasionally he would get involved, but more the people behind him, so Christopher Pyne in particular," she said.
Ms Gillard declined to publicly state whether she'd prefer Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese as the new Labor leader.
