Will Australia's first woman prime minister Julia Gillard have the briefest reign?

She is the Welsh-born Australian prime minister who is fighting in a neck and neck race for every last vote, including those cast by Australians in Britain.

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard
Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard Credit: Photo: GETTY

It was only in June that Julia Gillard, 48, seized the job from her former boss, in a ruthless internal Labour Party coup that she said was essential to keeping the Left in power – but which critics saw as a treacherous stab in the back for Kevin Rudd, her hapless predecessor.

Now, with less than a week left until the election she promised she could win, Australia's first woman prime minister is engaged in a frantic nationwide tour after opinion polls showed her neck and neck with the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, 52.

From a 10 point lead before the campaign began, Labour slipped to being just two points ahead of the rival Liberal-National Coalition, and some recent polls have even put the party behind.

The harsh reality for Ms Gillard is that, despite having strong support among women voters, she is in danger of becoming one of the shortest tenures of any Australian prime minister – because so many Australian men do not warm to her.

Talking to The Sunday Telegraph on her campaign plane, she refused to speculate on the reasons – and whether, as some suggest, her own lack of a family as an unmarried career politician makes her even more intimidating to already apprehensive Australian men.

"At this stage I will leave it in the hands of the Australian people, both men and women, to make their decisions on election day, but I believe it will come down to choices about what's better for people's futures for them and their families," she said.

But she defended her decision to oust Mr Rudd, whose popularity had plummeted since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in 2007, making clear she had no regrets about having moved in for the kill.

The issue comes up wherever she goes: at a public forum in Sydney last week the first question had been about her "political assassination" of the former Labour leader.

"For me it was a very difficult choice," she said, as her plane bumped around in the skies over the Bass Strait that separates the mainland from the island of Tasmania, "but I came to the decision that the government was not in a shape to find the solutions that at the time they needed.

"So it was the right thing to do. It was the judgment I made to step up to the position as prime minister, and my Labour colleagues came to the same judgement."

Acknowledging she was in one of the tightest election races in recent history, she appealed for the support of the 200,000 Australians living in Britain, aware that every single vote – no matter where from – could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

"I believe that Australians who go overseas to work are optimistic about the future of their homeland," she said. "When they come back I want them to return to a country that has a strong economy, good services and embraces the future."

Ms Gillard was speaking in the middle of a day that included visits to four different cities, hundreds of miles apart. On the ground, the carefully-polished Gillard charm does indeed appear to work wonders on women, who seem disarmed by her success, determination and down-to-earth style.

Gail Wade, a canteen worker at a campaign stop at Riverside High School in the northern Tasmanian city of Launceston, was bubbling with excitement at the prospect of meeting her, and had prepared a paper bag of sweets and chocolates as a gift.

"I reckon you might need some energy over the next few days," she said. "I daresay I will," Ms Gillard replied, only too aware of the marathon battle still ahead.

At close quarters she seems warmer than her more formal and less appealing television persona - though that, of course, is all that most voters will see.

She has the demeanour and comportment of an efficient, albeit somewhat patronising, schoolteacher: an arm always ready to shoot out and land a reassuring pat on the shoulder, a wry quip in reserve for a misbehaving youth or journalist.

In the school's playground Ms Gillard was greeted by about 300 teenagers, who crowded in to exchange high fives and get her autograph on books, shirts and, in one case, the cast for a broken arm. "She touched me! She touched me!" one girl screamed.

Hayley Cook, 16, stood slightly back from the crowd as she watched the media circus. "I think she's a really good role model," she said. "I look up to her because she's the first female prime minister and I like her ideas."

But men are less sure how to react. Do they shake her hand? Should they address her as "Julia"? Are they allowed to touch her?

Stuart Henson, a builder, threw out the rule book, slipped his arm around her shoulder and planted a long kiss on her cheek for the cameras. "That'll get you on the national news," Ms Gillard responded, blushing slightly.

The day had started at a community centre in the small Hobart suburb of Midway Point, where Ms Gillard pushed the button on the National Broadband Network, an ambitious $43bn project to boost Australia’s internet speeds.

The morning was cold, windy and wet, and the short walk from the car played havoc with the prime ministerial hair. But she pressed on to deliver the message that Mr Abbott’s rival wireless plan would leave the country “frozen in time”.

“When I was in high school my mother said that I need to learn to type because a woman can always get a job if she can type,” she told the room stacked with local politicians, internet company owners and media.

“So I sat with my mother for years on end learning to type on an Olivetti typewriter.

“That was information technology when I was growing up. How foolish would it have been to say the Olivetti manual typewriter is good enough.”

The anecdote combined a carefully crafted reference to the values of her working class parents, a mention of her relatively unprivileged childhood, and a good dollop of desire to “move Australia forward”.

Yet all is not such plain sailing, either in Tasmania - or elsewhere. Outside the school later that day a group of loud and angry protesters was demanding that the prime minister halt construction on a bypass outside the state capital, Hobart, that would destroy a sacred Aboriginal site. Ms Gillard flatly ignored them.

In Queensland, her predecesssor's home turf, there remains real anger over how she dispatched Mr Rudd - and a bout of in-fighting between rival Labour factions set back her campaign.

And around Australia she has faced heavy flak on a range of subjects. Perhaps because of her background as a "10 pound Pom" - the price of a ticket to emigrate from Britain when she was a child - she talks less roughly about refugees and asylum seekers than many of her countrymen, a fact which her opponent, Mr Abbott, has been quick to exploit.

Yet she is also under fire from human rights groups for a plan to move the processing of asylum claims to East Timor, 400 miles northwest of Australia.

Her opponents also make much of her commitment to reducing Australia's carbon emissions - a subject which bitterly divides voters.

Back on the plane and now heading for Melbourne, Ms Gillard admitted that the Labour government, which would be the first for 80 years to be voted out after a single term term if it does lose on Saturday, had made mistakes since it threw John Howard out of office in 2007. "It is a matter of recorded fact that there were a series of areas where things didn't go according to plan for the government," she said.

"Our government was elected with a broad agenda and we did set about delivering that agenda. We also faced the global financial crisis and had to act fast to create a stimulus package that would support jobs.

"Where we are now is that the community is testing where to go next and what to do next."

Laying out her vision for Australia on the world stage, she was careful to keep all doors open. Her nation's future was "deeply interconnected" with the Asia-Pacific region, she said. But she added: "The defence relationship and alliance with the US is ongoing and underpins our foreign policy, and we are connected to the UK as the so-called mother country, so that is part of how we see ourselves."

At this crucial point in the campaign, as Ms Gillard's pace grows ever more frenetic, her opponent Mr Abbott - renowned for posing in his "budgie-smuggler" swimming trunks as much as for his conservative views - seems to be slowing down and enjoying the ride.

As if taunting her hyper-activity, he usually visits just one city each day, makes a couple of announcements and might appear at a fund-raising dinner or give a relaxed television interview. He talks up his status as the underdog, but clearly believes the election is winnable.

In a brief gap between meetings Ms Gillard said she feared that the polls were tightening again - and there has beenmuch recent speculation about the mathematically unlikely possibility of a hung parliament, where a handful of independent MPs could hold the balance of power.

But Ms Gillard is ready for the fight. With four weeks of campaigning behind her and only one remaining till election day she said, almost as if to reassure herself: "There's plenty of time left - we've still got plenty of time."