Frequent PM Changes in Australia: Causes and Policy Impacts

This essay examines the instability in Australian politics, particularly the frequent changes in Prime Ministers over the past decade. It highlights the short election cycles, the dominance of two major political camps (the Coalition and the Labor Party), and the increasing unpredictability in voting patterns as contributing factors. The essay discusses the tenures of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, and Malcolm Turnbull, emphasizing the internal party challenges and leadership spills that led to their replacements. The impact of these frequent changes includes policy instability, administrative uncertainty, and the disruption caused by new ministerial councils taking office. The essay concludes by suggesting that Australian policymakers should consider alternative democratic structures to promote greater government stability and productivity. Desklib provides students access to similar solved assignments and resources.

Running head: POLITICAL SCIENCE
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note:

1POLITICAL SCIENCE
Australian politics has been quite unstable for some time now, at least in terms of its
election of prime ministers. The Australian general elections take place after every three years,
which is shorter than general election than most of the other democracies around the world. This
creates a situation where the politicians and the political parties in Australia have to start vying
for the next election and its preparation within just one or one and half year after one election.
This is one of the source of political over activeness in Australian scenario which sometimes
gives rise to chaos and crisis which in turn produces instability (Primeministers.naa.gov.au
2018).
The Australian people elect their Member of Parliaments who then selects the Prime
Minister. Therefore, the system is adopted from the Westminster system. In Australia there are
mainly two political camps that dominate the political scenario of Australia, the Coalition of the
Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia on one side and the Australian
Labor Party on the other side. From 2007 onwards the Australian political scenario has become
more unpredictable, the voting pattern of the people have changed, and there is unpredictability
about whom they may vote for, with more number of people voting for smaller parties or
independent nominees.
The incidents of political “dumping or back stabbing” has increased in Australia, when a
Prime Minister is removed from the office due to political rivalry even before he or she can
complete her term as Prime Minister and go to the next vote. During the economic recession
Australia was one of the country that was more or less unaffected by the economic slowdown,
leading many economists to term it as “economic miracle”. Till 2007 Australia had only 4 Prime
Ministers but post that time there have been 5 Prime Ministers in the country which according to
many political thinkers reflect the unstable nature of contemporary politics in Australia.

2POLITICAL SCIENCE
Kevin Michael Rudd was selected as the Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010 for 3 years,
completing his full term for probably the last time as of yet in Australian politics. He is a
member of the Australian Labor Party. In 2007 Labor party won the election by great margins,
and Rudd was elected the Prime Minister of the new government. After coming to power one of
the first thing done by Rudd was to apologize to the native Australians for their “lost
generation”. Although some important steps were taken by the Rudd’s government in bringing
some much needed changes in the country, however by 2010 his popularity came down by
massive margins among Australians for several reasons including the “Resource Super Profit
Tax” delay of the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”. Within the labor party itself the leader
ship of Rudd was questioned and his own deputy Julia Gillard announced a challenge to his
Prime Minister-ship. Rudd himself resigned following the crisis and Gillard was elected as the
Prime minister without opposition. She became the Prime Minister even before the general
elections were held because Rudd stepped down from the position. However, in the next 2010
general elections, for the first time since 1940 a hung parliament was seen in Australia and
Gillard could hardly come back to power and maintain her Prime Minister-ship with the help of
one “Green” MP and three “independent” MPs’.
The Prime Ministerial stint of Gillard could not go on for a long time, and soon she again
lost her position. This time Rudd took the opportunity of grabbing away power back to himself
after a leadership spill again in 2013. Like the elections at United States of America in Australia
as well there are Presidential debates in big news channels. In 2013 clearly the popularity of the
Labor party was at its lowest, and there were clear indications that there was going to be a
change in the course of political scenario in Australia. Rudd had challenged Gillard post the

3POLITICAL SCIENCE
formation of the minority government by her, and Gillard was defeated in the leadership vote.
Gillard had given her resignation soon, and after that she also took retirement from politics.
Tony Abbott became the Prime Minister in 2013 after the victory of the Coalition win in
Australian general elections. Therefore, this was the third change of Prime Minister in 6 years
(Liddy et al. 2015). The swearing in ceremony that happened after the victory in 2013 had been
criticized by some quarters for including only one 1 women in the ministerial council. There
were many important initiatives taken by him in the very beginning of his Prime Ministerial stint.
He had repealed the Carbon Tax on the very first day, and taken action to halt all illegal
“maritime activities”. Apart from that he also introduced legislation to establish “Royal
Commission into trade union governance and corruption”. One of his important initiatives was
the “repeal day” in which more than 10000 “red tape” regulations were repealed.
In 2015 Malcolm Turnbull, the then communication minister in the government
challenged the Liberal party leadership, in a leadership spill (Westcott 2016). These inner party
processes witness one member of the same party getting defeated from another member and the
voting takes place among the members of the party members themselves. Malcolm Turnbull won
the leadership challenge and Abbott was defeated. Abbott in the final speech did not mention
much about how he would go about in his political career, however he mentioned that he would
continue to be a parliamentarian.
Since 2015, Malcolm Turnbull is the Prime Minister of Australia, and he is the leader of
the Liberal Party as well. During the Abbott Government it was seen in consecutive opinion polls
and many other public opinion surveys that the popularity of the Government was lowering. In
such situation, Turnbull decided to challenge Abbott in the leadership spill, because according to
him "was not capable of providing the economic leadership we need". He defeated Abbott and

4POLITICAL SCIENCE
was soon sworn in. The general election of 2016 was approaching and Turnbull had shifted his
focus to the elections, however in the opinion polls a close competition was predicted. The result
of the election was very close, and the Turnbull government could hold its position by just one
single seat.
Therefore, the factors that have contributed to such frequent changes in the Australian
Prime Minister’s office can be understood by the above discussions. The impact of such frequent
changes in Australian administrative structure is that it makes the policies to change frequently.
The repeated changes in the administrative structure also results in many changes in policies and
decisions, many old policies are scrapped off and new policies and plans are implemented. This
gives rise to uncertainty in administrative decision making. Apart from that the changes result in
loss of days as the process of the whole new councils of ministers taking over the office and
settling takes considerable time.
The Australian policy makers may give proper thought to such frequent elections, and
how to make the government more stable and productive. Most of the democracies in the world
have 4 or 5 years to complete their term at office, Australia may contemplate on democratic
structures around the world.

5POLITICAL SCIENCE
Reference and Bibliography:
Australianpolitics.com., 2018. 2013 And The Years Of Three Prime Ministers |
AustralianPolitics.com. [online] Australianpolitics.com. Available at:
http://australianpolitics.com/2013/12/20/the-years-of-the-prime-ministers.html [Accessed 8 Apr.
2018].
Liddy, M., praggon, B., Fahey, L., Elvery, S. and Gourlay, C., 2015. Tony Abbott's toppling is
the 66th leadership change in 13 years: see them all. [online] ABC News. Available at:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-10/australia-political-leadership-rollercoaster/6080126
[Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].
Primeministers.naa.gov.au., 2018. Timeline - Australia's Prime Ministers. [online]
Primeministers.naa.gov.au. Available at: http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/timeline/results.aspx
[Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].
Sandhu, S.., 2015. Why is it so easy to get rid of the Australian Prime Minister?. [online] The
Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/tony-abbott-
removed-australia-has-had-five-prime-ministers-in-five-years-10500229.html [Accessed 8 Apr.
2018].
Westcott, B., 2016. Could Australia have its 6th PM in 6 years?. [online] CNN. Available at:
https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/28/asia/australia-election-2016-explainer/index.html [Accessed
8 Apr. 2018].