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The Australian Labor Party held a leadership election on 19 March 1996, following the resignation of Paul Keating after the party's defeat at the 1996 federal election. Kim Beazley was elected unopposed as Keating's replacement, thus becoming Leader of the Opposition.
Speculation about Keating's successor began midway through his second term in office, as a result of consistently poor polling. Finance Minister Kim Beazley, Health Minister Carmen Lawrence, Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, and Employment Minister Simon Crean were all reported as possible contenders at various stages. [1] [2] [3] In June 1995, deputy leader Brian Howe announced his resignation. Beazley was elected unopposed as his replacement, thus becoming Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. Keating then endorsed Beazley as his own eventual successor, stating that he was "the obvious person in the long run". It was reported that Carmen Lawrence was the preferred candidate of Howe's Labor Left faction for the deputy leadership, but that she chose not to stand because she did not have the numbers in the caucus as a whole. Her position was thought to have been damaged by an ongoing Western Australian royal commission into her role in the Easton affair. [4]
In April 1995, opinion polling by AGB McNair on behalf of The Sydney Morning Herald had Gareth Evans (20 percent), Carmen Lawrence (18 percent), Kim Beazley (13 percent), and Simon Crean (8 percent) as the favourites to succeed Paul Keating as Labor leader, although 31 percent of respondents were unsure. [5] By July 1995, the same polling firm had Beazley on 27 percent, followed by Lawrence (19 percent), Evans (10 percent), and Crean (9 percent). [6]
Keating announced he would resign as Labor leader on the night of 2 March 1996, when it became clear that Labor had lost the federal election to John Howard's Coalition. By the following week, it was correctly being reported that Beazley would be elected unopposed as his successor when the Labor caucus met on 19 March. However, there was initially some concern that he would not win his seat, the Division of Brand in Western Australia – his final margin of victory was only 387 votes. [7] [8]
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In the lead-up to the caucus meeting, most media attention was given to who would be the party's new deputy leader. Gareth Evans eventually defeated Simon Crean by 42 votes to 37. [9]
| Candidate | Final ballot | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gareth Evans | 42 | 52.2 | |
| Simon Crean | 37 | 46.8 | |
After Labor nearly won the 1998 federal election Gareth Evans stood down as deputy leader being replaced by Simon Crean.
Simon Findlay Crean was an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and leader of the opposition from 2001 to 2003. He represented the seat of Hotham in the House of Representatives from 1990 to 2013 and was a cabinet minister in the Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments.
Kim Christian Beazley is an Australian former politician and diplomat. Since 2022 he has served as chairman of the Australian War Memorial. Previously, he was leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and leader of the opposition from 1996 to 2001 and 2005 to 2006, having previously been a cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating governments. After leaving parliament, he served as ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2016 and 33rd governor of Western Australia from 2018 to 2022.
Francis Daniel Crean was an Australian politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives from 1951 to 1977, representing the Labor Party. He was a minister in the Whitlam government, including as Treasurer from 1972 to 1974 and the fifth deputy prime minister for a few months in 1975.
Carmen Mary Lawrence is an Australian academic and former politician who was the premier of Western Australia from 1990 to 1993, the first woman to become the premier of an Australian state. To date she is the only female premier of Western Australia. A member of the Labor Party, she later entered federal politics as a member of the House of Representatives from 1994 to 2007, and served as a minister in the Keating government.
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Jennifer Louise Macklin is an Australian former politician. She was elected to federal parliament at the 1996 federal election and served as the deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 2001 to 2006, under opposition leaders Simon Crean, Mark Latham and Kim Beazley. After the ALP won government at the 2007 election, she held ministerial office under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, serving as Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (2007–2013) and Minister for Disability Reform (2011–2013). She retired from parliament at the 2019 election.
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Gareth John Evans, is an Australian politician, international policymaker, academic, and barrister. He represented the Labor Party in the Senate and House of Representatives from 1978 to 1999, serving as a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating governments from 1983 to 1996 as Attorney-General, Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Transport and Communications and most prominently, from 1988 to 1996, as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was Leader of the Government in the Senate from 1993 to 1996, Deputy Leader of the Opposition from 1996 to 1998, and remains one of the two longest-serving federal Cabinet Ministers in Labor Party history.
The second Keating ministry (Labor) was the 59th ministry of the Government of Australia. It was led by the country's 24th Prime Minister, Paul Keating. The second Keating ministry succeeded the first Keating ministry, which dissolved on 24 March 1993 following the federal election that took place on 13 March. The ministry was replaced by the first Howard ministry on 11 March 1996 following the federal election that took place on 2 March which saw the Liberal–National Coalition defeat Labor.
Ralph Willis AO is an Australian former politician who served as a Cabinet Minister during the entirety of the Hawke-Keating government from 1983 to 1996, most notably as Treasurer of Australia from 1993 to 1996 and briefly in 1991. He also served as Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Transport and Communications and Minister for Finance. He represented the Victorian seat of Gellibrand in the House of Representatives from 1972 to 1998.
The following lists events that happened during 1995 in Australia.
The Australian Labor Party Caucus comprises all Australian Labor Party (ALP) senators and members of parliament of the current Commonwealth Parliament. The Caucus determines some matters of policy, parliamentary tactics, and disciplinary measures against disobedient parliamentarians. It is alternatively known as the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party (FPLP).
Brian Leslie HoweAO is a retired Australian politician and Uniting Church minister. He served as the eighth deputy prime minister of Australia and the deputy leader of the Labor Party from 1991 to 1995, under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. He was a government minister continuously from 1983 to 1996, and a member of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1996, representing the Division of Batman in Victoria.
In Australian politics, a leadership spill is a declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant and open for contest. A spill may involve all or some of the leadership positions. Where a rival to the existing leader calls for a spill it may also be called a leadership challenge. When successful, it is often said that the former leader has been "rolled". In Australian English the colloquial use of the word "spill" seems to have begun in the mid-1940s with the contest to replace Prime Minister John Curtin after his death on 5 July 1945.
Thomas Clive Wheelwright is a financial economist and Australian politician. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian Senate from May 1995 until June 1996, representing New South Wales.
A leadership spill of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was held on 4 December 2006. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley was challenged by Shadow Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, while Deputy Opposition Leader Jenny Macklin was challenged by Shadow Health Minister Julia Gillard in a joint-ticket. Rudd defeated Beazley, after which Macklin resigned, leaving Gillard to become Deputy Leader unopposed.
Two leadership spills of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), the official opposition party in the Parliament of Australia, were held on 16 June 2003 and 2 December 2003, respectively. The Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, won the ballot in June against former opposition leader Kim Beazley, but resigned as leader in late November after losing support from his colleagues and did not contest the December ballot which Mark Latham won against Kim Beazley.
A leadership spill in the Australian Labor Party, the party of government in the Parliament of Australia, was held on 21 March 2013. Prime Minister Julia Gillard called a ballot for the Leadership and Deputy Leadership of the Labor Party for 4.30pm, following a press conference by former Labor Leader and Regional Minister Simon Crean over persistent leadership tensions. At the caucus meeting, no alternative candidates nominated for the positions, and so Gillard and Wayne Swan were re-elected unopposed.
The Australian Labor Party held a leadership election on 22 November 2001, following the resignation of Kim Beazley after the party's defeat at the 2001 federal election. Deputy leader and Shadow Treasurer Simon Crean was elected unopposed as Beazley's replacement, thus becoming Leader of the Opposition.
