US President Barack Obama sent congratulations to Australia's first woman prime minister, Julia Gillard, on Thursday, praising her predecessor Kevin Rudd as a "great friend of America".
"President Obama offers his congratulations to Julia Gillard on her assumption of the position of Prime Minister of Australia and on the historic step of becoming Australia's first female prime minister," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
"The United States and Australia enjoy a special and productive relationship and alliance that will continue to prosper under her leadership.
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"The president looks forward to working with Prime Minister Gillard across the broad range of issues on which the United States and Australia currently enjoy strong and deep cooperation and looks forward to speaking with her soon.
"The president also wishes to extend his thanks and best wishes to former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who remains a great friend of America."
Welsh-born Gillard became Australia's first woman prime minister after the once hugely popular Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd fell to a party coup less than three years after taking office.
Gillard, 48, pledged to seek a popular mandate within months, and set about reversing the issues that sank Rudd by pursuing a dropped carbon trading scheme and urging mining chiefs to cancel a TV campaign against a planned new tax.
Rudd was one of the world leaders with whom Obama had appeared to bond most closely during his first year in office.
He had to twice cancel planned trips to Australia this year, once to successfully lobby for his health care reform plan, and again this month over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
