Despite Tony Abbott’s win in the party room this morning, the odds of his leadership surviving until the next election are not great.
Almost every previous example of an incumbent leader surviving an internal leadership challenge was only a reprieve, with that leader losing their job before the next election.
In federal politics, one can point to the examples of Bill Hayden in 1982, Bob Hawke in 1991, Simon Crean in 2003 and Julia Gillard in 2012. In all four cases, that leader didn’t last until the next election.
In the case of John Gorton being challenged by Bill McMahon in 1971, the vote was tied and Gorton chose to resign.
The only example I can find of a leader surviving to the next election after winning a leadership challenge is Malcolm Fraser, who defeated Andrew Peacock’s challenge in 1981 and led the party to defeat in 1983.
There may be other examples that are relevant here, at either a federal or state level, but unfortunately it’s hard to find a definitive list of all leadership elections.
Apart from this one point, I thought I’d share a piece I wrote for New Matilda in February 2012, shortly after Kevin Rudd’s failed challenge to Julia Gillard’s leadership.
In particular, I suggested that the solution to revolving-door leadership contests lies in giving power to party members to choose leaders, not restricting this power to members of Parliament.
After Kevin Rudd took power in 2013, he changed Labor rules to give half of the vote in leadership elections to party members, and since the 2013 election we haven’t seen anything close to a leadership challenge to Bill Shorten.
Kevin Rudd did NOT change Labor’s rules on electing parliamentary leaders. He announced that he would do so, and was supported by a resolution of Caucus at the Balmain meeting. But Caucus does not make Labor rules. National Conference makes rules, and there hasn’t been a National Conference since 2011. In any case Rudd’s proposed rule change was to apply only when Labor was in office, so even if it was a rule it wouldn’t apply now. A majority of Caucus could remove Shorten tomorrow if it wanted to. (But since he’s the most successful Opposition Leader since polling began, that’s not very likely.) More generally, tying the hands of Caucus in such a way would be very foolish. Caucus is usually the best judge of when a leader needs to be replaced. We see the alternative system in operation in Britain, where the Parliamentary Labour Party is powerless to remove Miliband, although he is obviously leading Labour to defeat.
If that’s the case, why did they conduct a direct election to elect Shorten, after Labor was out of power?
I’m just imagining Turnbull reviving the tactics he used to win the Wentworth preselection and running a nation-wide membership drive if the Liberals had a Leader elected by party members 🙂
I don’t think it’s clearly true that “Caucus is usually the best judge of when a leader needs to be replaced”, but I do think that it’s imperative that the parliamentary leader has the confidence of Caucus.
Ben – Because they decided to pretend that was the rule, and I think they were right to do so. The Shorten-Albanese contest restored party morale and gave Labor momentum which it has maintained ever since. But the fact is that the Party rules still say that Caucus elects the Leader. I don’t know what is planned for Nat Conf, but I expect that a new system of choosing a leader will be put into the rules. (The difficult issue is whether affiliated unions will get a vote as well as branch members. They are as much ALP members as the branchies, but Rudd deliberately cut them out of his proposed rule change.) But if that is done, there will be a price to pay in terms of flexibility. If that rule had been in place, Hawke could not have replaced Hayden in 1983, and Fraser would probably have won the 1983 election. Ditto Rudd and Beazley in 2006. Ditto Brumby and Bracks in Victoria in 1999.
Nick – I don’t care what the Liberals do. Perhaps they should apply market principles and auction their leadership.
The Democrats had direct election of their leader and had all sorts of leadership fights.
Its not the rules of the parties that cause these problems its the nature of the parties themselves.
I note the absence of leadership struggles in the Federal Greens.
Oh they have them, but they manage to keep them behind closed doors. Ludlam badly wants to be Leader.
Haha, I highly doubt Adam you have any idea about what shape the Greens internal leadership tensions look like, even though you are right that they exist.
Whatever tensions exist there is no revolving door leadership in the Greens despite MPs choosing their leader.
I don’t agree with the argument that direct member voting fixes the fights over leadership for the other parties (it didnt help the Democrats). its more that the revolving door leadership is a symptom of the other problems modern political parties are facing.
I would argue that the Greens avoid this because of a whole range of unique factors including internal democracy and idelogy.
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