New Australia PM says Rudd ouster 'right thing to do'

---

SYDNEY, June 25 (AFP): Australia's new leader Julia Gillard defended her ruthless disposal of predecessor Kevin Rudd Friday as she used her first day in office to target the policy blunders which triggered the shock takeover.
The country's first woman prime minister said deposing Rudd was "the right thing to do" and immediately set about ending a damaging row over a mining tax which fatally drained the ex-leader's support as national polls loom.
Gillard was elected unopposed Thursday in a party vote announced only hours earlier as a tearful Rudd, facing a humiliating defeat, stepped aside, just two-and-a-half years after sweeping to a landslide election win.
"They were not easy decisions. I have taken them because I thought they were the right thing to do," Gillard told reporters. "I felt it was in the best interests of the nation to get the government back on track."
The flame-haired, Welsh-born lawyer promised greater teamwork than Rudd, whose controlling tendencies alienated him in the party and finally cost him the job as his enduring public support came down from record highs.
But she denied being a puppet of Labor's factional powerbrokers who are widely credited with orchestrating the first unseating of an Australian prime minister since Paul Keating deposed Bob Hawke in 1991.
Meanwhile, AP from Canberra adds: Australia's new prime minister said she used her first telephone conversation with President Barack Obama on Friday to assure him the country's military commitment to Afghanistan would not change under her leadership.