Leadership spill

Process

In the Westminster system of government, the leader of the party which forms government becomes the prime minister, while the leader of the largest party not in government becomes leader of the Opposition. Contenders for the role of leader of a major party usually (but not always) come from the cabinet or shadow cabinet.

A leadership spill occurs when a member or members of the parliamentary party feel that the leader is taking the party in an undesirable direction or is simply not delivering on promises made to those who elected the leader, and does not have the numbers to back his or her position. A spill may be triggered by consistently poor opinion polls.

A spill can be initiated by the party leader in office, usually in the hope of gaining a fresh mandate to quell dissenting voices in the party. It may occur at any time, leaving the person in the leadership position always 'on notice'.

Federal ALP changes

Following his return to the leadership of the Australian Labor Party in 2013, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sought changes to the party's rules so that leadership spills would be more difficult to launch in future. The changes included the requirement for 75% support within the Australian Labor Party Caucus for a special leadership ballot against a sitting Labor prime minister, or 60% against an opposition leader. Another change was that future leadership ballots would include equally weighted voting rights between the caucus and party rank and file members with each block being counted separately and worth 50% of the total.

The rule that a Labor prime minister can only be removed if 75 per cent of MPs agree to force a ballot (or 60 per cent of caucus for an opposition leader) is a caucus-approved rule and was not included in the 2018 National Platform.

Federal Liberal Party changes

Following the oustings of two Liberal prime minister in 3 years, Scott Morrison, who won the leadership spill of 24 August 2018 introduced a new threshold to trigger a Liberal Party leadership change in government, requiring two-thirds of the partyroom vote to trigger a spill motion. The change was introduced at an hour long party room meeting on the evening of 3 December 2018. Morrison said the changes, which were drafted with feedback from former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, would only apply to leaders who lead the party to victory at a federal election.

Impact

Historically, a governing party's replacement of its leader fails to improve its electoral fortunes. Across state and federal politics between 1970 and 2014, over 90% of governing parties that replaced their leader lost their majority at the subsequent election. The chances of success are higher when the party is in opposition, leading to success at the subsequent election about 50% of the time.

Notable spill motions

The following spill motions occurred during a parliamentary term, rather than in the aftermath of an election loss. Colours denote the party holding the leadership spill motion. Blue represents the Liberal Party, red the Labor Party, and green the National Party.

Federal

States and territories

New South Wales

Northern Territory

Queensland

South Australia

Victoria

Western Australia

In popular culture

An episode of the American TV series Madam Secretary, "The Common Defense", featured a fictional Australian prime minister and one of the main characters Jay Whitman (Sebastian Arcelus) commented that Australia throws Prime Ministers out like confetti. The episode was originally aired on March 24, 2019, and it is an allusion to the real life frequency of Prime Ministers between 2013 and 2018 as a result of leadership spills against the sitting prime minister, which caused there to be five prime ministers in just five years (Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison).

References

References

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