Why it’s harder for our major parties to kick out sitting prime ministers

Tony Abbott says “the era of the political assassin is over” — but the truth is the man we elect on Saturday could easily still be knifed.

When US comedian Arj Barker took to the stage at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre recently, he made a joke that perfectly captured the sorry state of Aussie politics.

It was always exciting to touch down in Australia, he quipped, because you never knew who the Prime Minister would be — and because there was a small chance it could even be you.

The audience erupted, because the joke summarised the circus Australian politics has become, with leader after leader toppled by ruthless backstabbing in recent years.

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But when Australians head to the polls on Saturday, it will be the first time we have a solid chance of actually hanging onto the prime minister we elect.

Here’s why.

COUP CULTURE

Australian politics used to be fairly stable — but that all changed after Kevin Rudd won the 2007 federal election, only to be knifed in 2010 by Julia Gillard — who was rolled herself by Mr Rudd three years later in 2013 when he took back the leadership before being defeated in the polls.

But the Coalition soon followed Labor’s chaotic lead — Tony Abbott, who won the 2013 election, was axed by Malcolm Turnbull in 2015 following a leadership spill.

Mr Turnbull won the 2016 election, but in August 2018 he was unsuccessfully challenged by Peter Dutton in yet another spill.

He survived — only to be defeated just days later in a second spill, when Scott Morrison took the wheel.

The trend began when Julia Gillard knifed Kevin Rudd. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP Image

LABOR

In the dying months of Kevin Rudd’s leadership in 2013, the party adopted new rules designed to prevent the relentless assassination of leaders which had become commonplace.

Since then, the decision to oust a leader needs at least 60 per cent of the caucus vote when the party is in opposition, and 75 per cent when it is in power.

When there are two or more contenders, the leader will be decided by a vote of both parliamentary and rank-and-file members, with each group having a 50 per cent say.

COALITION

Late last year, the Liberals also introduced new rules to end what Prime Minister Scott Morrison described at the time as the “coup culture” plaguing Aussie politics.

In December, members voted in support of a new move that would require a two-thirds party room majority to boot out sitting Prime Minister.

It means that from Saturday onwards, a Liberal leader who wins an election cannot be removed from power unless most party members unite to depose them — something Mr Morrison said was “rarely, if ever, achieved”.

It means Coalition leaders will likely serve a full term in future, causing Mr Abbott to famously claim “the era of the political assassin is over”.

Tony Abbott says “the era of the political assassin is over” — but is it really? Picture: Joel Carrett/AAP Image

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER SATURDAY?

The rules introduced by both parties will clearly make it harder to kick out a leader — but does that definitely mean the man we elect on Saturday will remain in the top job — and will it finally end the political bloodbath?

According to political expert and the University of Sydney academic Professor Rodney Smith, that depends.

While Dr Smith said the new rules would help reduce instability, he said we “can’t rule out entirely” that the rules could simply change again.

But he said it would take something “super dramatic” for that to happen now — in other words, a “genuine crisis” rather than a few opinion poll losses — and that a leadership challenge would be a “very foolish move” in the near future, given the “current opinion about leadership churn”.

Fellow political pundit and Deakin University academic Geoffrey Robinson agreed, and said “anything can happen”.

“The important thing to keep in mind is that there is nothing to prevent these rules from being changed again,” he said.

The man that wins the election can still be removed by their party. Picture: AAP Images

“They’re not written in stone, they’re not in the party constitution, so they can be overturned … I’m sure if a party thought they were crashing towards a huge defeat under an unpopular leader, they’d find a way to get rid of them.”

Prof Smith said instability in the Coalition was more recent than in the ALP — a factor that could hurt Scott Morrison’s chances this weekend, as Aussies were now fed up with political backstabbing.

“It feeds into this underlying distrust and negativity about politicians in Australia — that they’re in it for themselves and self-indulgent,” he said.

“Some of that is wrong, but the perception has been around for a long time and when the party in power changes leaders every couple of years or months it plays into that perception that politics is a game played by self-interested people in Canberra.”

Prof Robinson said many Australians voted based on their preferred leader, which is why many were angered when a party then removed that person.

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