Operation Julia

For over 6 years, 'The Brink' has brought you the biggest names from Across Tasmania, Australia and around the World. But there had been one guest who has eluded us. One guest that had yet to answer the famous 5 questions. One guest who Hobart wanted us to interview. That guest? The Prime Minister of Australia herself, Julia Gillard. But this ended in 2011, as 'The Brink' finally landed Julia!

On the 6th of May 2011, The Brink officially launched it's biggest campaign yet. The goal? To get the Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard to apppear on the show.

Through various means including Facebook pages, Twitter and various other forms we hoped to pressure our leading lady into coming on the show and chatting to us and bringing Edge Radio it's biggest ever guest in it's history.

Throughout the campaign we held the first ever International Julia Gillard Day on the 10th of June 2011. On that day are asked people on Facebook to change their profile picture for one day to a picture of Julia Gillard to show off their support on getting the PM on our show, and it prooved to be one massive success!

Click image for full view!

(Article copyright MX Newspaper)

Click image for full view!

(Article and photos copyright The Mercury and News Ltd.)

Ben, Chris Bracken & Pete get in the spirit of International Julia Gillard Day

Just making sure there really weren't 3 Julia's

Sara Cooper & Pete again show off their Julia support

After months of campaigning, contacting and just being plain annoying, on the 1st of July 2011 we finally landed her, and The Brink brought The Prime Minister of Australia to Edge Radio for the first ever time.

Ben in the box interviewing the Prime Minister

It was an amazing achievement for everyone on the show and the station! And for all their efforts, they even landed some national & even international media attention with one of the answers the PM gave:

(Click on the images for the full stories)

It went to show that with the power of a campaign such as this, anything can be achieved!

If you wish to download the podcast of the interview then you can do so by clicking here and for a full transcript of the interview click here!

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It was also clear that after the interview happened, Ben & Julia would become the best of friends. Below are just some of the activities that they took part in after the interview happened: