Back in 2012, a major study on the selection and removal of party leaders in Anglo parliamentary democracies was published. The book contained a section with the inviting title of “Machiavellian tactics”. Most of the authors’ examples came from Australia.
That was then. Since the appearance of that book, Kevin Rudd has tipped out Julia Gillard, and Malcolm Turnbull dispensed with Tony Abbott. Now, Turnbull himself seems in difficulty, as rumours abound of a possible challenge from Peter Dutton.
If Politics at the Centre: The Selection and Removal of Party Leaders in the Anglo Parliamentary Democracies ever appears in a revised edition, William P. Cross and André Blais should thank their lucky stars for Australian democracy. Henry Lawson’s description of the Australian bush springs to mind – “the nurse and tutor of eccentric minds, the home of the weird, and much that is different from things in other lands”.
Read more: View from The Hill – It’s time for Turnbull to put his authority on the line
The intensification of leadership churn in recent decades, and especially since 2001, is well documented. After the defeat of Malcolm Fraser at the 1983 federal election, the Liberal Party changed leaders six times, eventually settling on John Howard in 1995. He then led the party for almost 13 years.
Since Brendan Nelson succeeded Howard after the 2007 election, the Coalition has changed leaders three times, including twice between the 2007 and 2010 elections. Following the defeat of Paul Keating’s Labor government at the 1996 election, Labor has had eight leadership changes, a remarkable feat considering that two of those leaders – Kim Beazley and Bill Shorten – have between them tallied up almost 13 years. The rest – Simon Crean, Mark Latham, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard – do not account for even a full decade between them.
Australia did not begin discarding party leaders and even prime ministers yesterday. Psephologist Malcolm Mackerras suggested during the peak Rudd-Gillard unpleasantness of 2012 that the phenomenon began with the rivalry between John Gorton and Billy McMahon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
This contest – and the instability to which it contributed – stood in stark contrast to the somnolence of the post-war years, which included the lengthy terms of leadership served by H.V. Evatt (1951-60) and Arthur Calwell (1960-67) during the long Menzies ascendancy (1949-66). The turbulence of the Whitlam leadership was in tune…
