Flashback: Gold Coasters react to Paul Keating winning 1991 leadership spill against Prime Minister Bob Hawke
ANOTHER year, another leadership spill which has seen Australia get yet another new Prime Minister. Here’s how locals reacted to the shocking downfall of the nation’s leader.
Gold Coast
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THE very public implosion of the Turnbull Government has been the story of the week, as yet another Prime Minister came in the crosshairs of their colleagues.
It’s a familiar sight for voters who have now witnessed eight leadership spills for the nation’s top job since that fateful night in June 2010 when Kevin Rudd was deposed by Julia Gillard.
This surreal conga line of failed leaders and defeats at the hands of colleagues and occasionally at the ballot box has left a bitter taste in the mouth of voters.
No Prime Minister has actually served a full three-year term since John Howard was voted out of office in 2007 and even he only narrowly avoided a leadership spill in the months before his defeat.
Many younger voters don’t realise that changing the nation’s leader was a rare occurrence before the events of June 2010 set off this self-destructive binge of political musical chairs.
Between 1970 and 2010 there were just four challenges to a sitting PM — Billy McMahon’s successful coup against John Gorton in 1971, Andrew Peacock’s unsuccessful bid to unseat Malcolm Fraser in 1982 and the two face-offs between Labor’s Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.
By 1991 the Hawke Government had been in power for more than eight years when Mr Keating, a long-time aspirant for the leadership, challenged Mr Hawke.
The then-federal treasurer failed in his June 1991 bid to take the Labor leadership but returned six months later to claim the job.
In a pre-Christmas leadership battle, Mr Keating finally succeeded in unseating Mr Hawke, whose popularity had dramatically declined after the 1990 federal election.
Mr Keating was sworn in by Governor General Bill Hayden on Friday, December 20, 1991.
And Gold Coasters were not happy with the change.
A poll of locals at Southport’s Australia Fair Shopping Centre found that local voters gave Mr Keating negative marks and said they were concerned about Australia’s future.
Southport resident Stan Willett, 70, said he was considering voting informally if Mr Keating was still leading Labor at the 1993 election.
“I liked Mr Hawke, but I just don’t like Mr Keating,” he said.
“He is no good and I don’t think the people of Australia like him or his attitude.”
Southport’s Shirley Malham said she predicted Mr Keating would be defeated in 1993.
“He will be lucky to last till the next election and that will be it,” she said.
Simon Haughey, an 18-year-old sales assistant, thought the leadership tussle had been ‘pathetic’.
A Hawke fan, he said he felt Australia’s longest-serving Labor Prime Minister had been a down-to-earth likeable man who felt for the people of Australia.
“He was just like an ordinary bloke — especially when we won the America’s Cup,” Mr Haughey said.
“But I don’t like Mr Keating at all.
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“He is rude towards people and I do not like his attitude.”
The Business community also had mixed feelings
Gold Coast Visitors and Convention Bureau chairman Peter Hughes welcomed the change.
“Tourism will only gain from the change in leadership and if we get a drop in the value of the dollar and we pick up international tourism and become more competitive in the domestic market because it would then be cheaper to have a holiday on the Gold Coast than Fiji,” he said.
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Real Estate Institute of Queensland president Ray Milton said he wanted interest rates brought down.
“I think Paul Keating is a capable sort of fellow and I think the main point out of all this is that the leadership is resolved and that, in itself, will generate some confidence,” he said.
Mr Keating went on to win the 1993 election and remained in power until Labor was defeated in 1996.
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