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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.
Kim Beazley was elected unopposed to become Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition for a second time on 28 January 2005, replacing Mark Latham who resigned after Labor's 2004 election defeat. [1]
Shortly after his election, Beazley's opinion poll ratings fell to a level between 30 and 35% and never recovered. By November 2006, media sources were claimed that consistently bad polls demonstrated that Beazley did not have the "ability to cut through", and The Australian's editorial complained on 22 November that "after 10 years and 10 months of Kim Beazley, it is still virtually impossible to say what he stands for". [2] [3] In addition, a series of embarrassing media gaffes, including referring to TV presenter Rove McManus as Karl Rove when extending condolences to McManus over his wife's death, raised questions about his ability and capacity to lead. [4]
Despite Beazley's personal unpopularity, the Labor Party was performing very well in the polls, consistently recording 50% and sometimes higher in two-party preferred polls. This was mostly attributed to interest rate rises, the AWB scandal, WorkChoices and many other policies and decisions of the Howard government. [5] [6] Despite this, primary vote polls consistently had Labor below 40%, and it was widely opined[ by whom? ] that Labor would not be able to win the next election with Beazley as Leader.[ citation needed ]
Throughout 2006 the Right of the Labor Party, especially in New South Wales and Victoria, had quietly canvassed replacing Beazley and his deputy Jenny Macklin with Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, respectively. Rudd was loosely aligned with the Right, while Gillard was a moderate left-winger. Labor sources later indicated that Rudd and Gillard had not themselves actively undermined Beazley, but had been effectively drafted. [2] Rudd's public profile in particular had increased considerably during 2006, mostly through his effective attacks on Foreign Minister Alexander Downer over the AWB scandal. [7] In addition, he had appeared on the Sunrise program on a weekly basis for seven years alongside Liberal MP Joe Hockey, and in October 2006 had written an essay, "Faith in Politics", in national magazine The Monthly that sought to prove that conservative parties did not have a monopoly on the religious vote. [2] [8] According to media reports, the Right of the Labor Party promised to throw its support behind Rudd for the leadership provided he challenge Beazley before Christmas. [9]
A Newspoll conducted in late November concluded that both Rudd and Gillard were significantly more popular than Beazley, and that Labor would be able to win the next election if it was led by either of them. [10] An AC Nielsen poll conducted on 30 November came to exactly the same conclusion. [11] [12]
On 30 November 2006, Rudd met with Beazley and told him that he intended to challenge him for the leadership. On 1 December, Beazley announced a leadership spill, after which Gillard announced she would challenge Macklin alongside Rudd as part of a joint-ticket. [13] [14] Both sides claimed that they were in a winning position, with Rudd claiming his team had a "bucketload of energy", while Beazley claimed that he had more experience.
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The election was held on Monday 4 December; Kevin Rudd was declared the winner by 49 votes to 39. [15] Immediately after Rudd had been elected Leader, Jenny Macklin withdrew her candidacy and resigned as Deputy Leader, allowing Gillard to be elected unopposed.
| Candidate | Votes | |
|---|---|---|
| Kevin Rudd | 49 | |
| Kim Beazley | 39 | |
Following the result, Beazley said of his political future, "For me to do anything further in the Australian Labor Party I would say is Lazarus with a quadruple bypass. So the time has come for me to move on, but when that gets properly formalised I will let you know." [16] It was also revealed that his brother David had died of a severe heart attack at age 53, shortly before the vote took place. [17]
Under the leadership of Rudd and Gillard, Labor went on to win the 2007 federal election by a landslide, ending eleven and a half years of the Howard government. The pair were duly sworn in as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister respectively on 3 December 2007. However Rudd would be deposed by Gillard in 2010 sparking a leadership crisis; one which may have been in retrospect been prevented if Rudd hadn't engaged in a leadership spill against Beazley in 2006. [18]
After her own demise as Prime Minister, Gillard has expressed her regret in teaming up with Rudd to bring down Beazley as leader. [19]
On her reflection on this spill in her 2014 memoir, Gillard said: "Was I wrong in my judgement of Kim Beazley in 2006? I fear I may have been, that what I inferred as his lack of interest in the work of opposition was really a more nuanced understanding of electoral politics than I then possessed … Kim may rightly have judged that we were so likely to win that a quieter biding of time in the lead-up to election day was a better approach than strenuous political exertion." [20]
Peter Garrett, an ALP caucus member who voted for Rudd would also regret this vote saying it was "certainly the biggest" mistake he made in his political career. [21]
In October 2016, almost a decade after Beazley's ousting as leader, journalist Chris Mitchell stated that Beazley was the best Prime Minister Australia never had. [22]
Simon Findlay Crean is an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was the Member of Parliament for Hotham from 1990 to 2013, representing the Labor Party, and served as a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments. He was the Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2001 to December 2003.
Kim Christian Beazley is an Australian former politician and diplomat. 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 governor of Western Australia from 2018 to 2022.
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian diplomat and former politician who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia, from 2007 to 2010 and June 2013 to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Rudd is the 23rd and current Ambassador of Australia to the United States since 2023.
The 1998 Australian federal election was held to determine the members of the 39th Parliament of Australia. It was held on 3 October 1998. All 148 seats of the House of Representatives and 40 seats of the 76-seat Senate were up for election. The incumbent centre-right Liberal/National Coalition government led by Prime Minister John Howard of the Liberal Party and coalition partner Tim Fischer of the National Party defeated the centre-left Australian Labor Party opposition led by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, despite losing the nationwide popular and two-party preferred vote. However, the Australian Labor Party gained seats from the previous election.
Julia Eileen Gillard is an Australian former politician who served as the 27th prime minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013, holding office as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). She previously served as the 13th deputy prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010, under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. She is the first and only female to hold either office in Australian history.
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.
Wayne Maxwell Swan, often colloquially referred to as Swanny, is an Australian politician serving as the 25th and current National President of the Labor Party since 2018, previously serving as the 14th Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and Deputy Leader of the Labor Party from 2010 to 2013, and the Treasurer of Australia from 2007 to 2013.
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In Australian politics, a leadership spill is a colloquialism referring to 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.
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The Gillard government was the Government of Australia led by the 27th Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, of the Australian Labor Party. The Gillard government succeeded the first Rudd government by way of the Labor Party leadership spill, and began on 24 June 2010, with Gillard sworn in as Prime Minister by the Governor-General of Australia, Quentin Bryce. The Gillard government ended when Kevin Rudd won back the leadership of the Australian Labor Party on 26 June 2013 and commenced the second Rudd government.
A leadership spill in the Australian Labor Party, the party of government in the Parliament of Australia, was held on 27 February 2012 at 10 am AEDT, followed by a ballot. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, announced the spill at a press conference on 23 February 2012, following the resignation of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd, from his cabinet position after months of speculation that he intended to challenge Gillard for the leadership. Rudd announced his intention to seek the leadership at a press conference on 24 February.
A leadership spill of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), the official opposition party in the Parliament of Australia, was held on 28 January 2005. The outgoing Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, stood down 13 months after assuming the leadership in December 2003. Kim Beazley was the only contender for the ballot, and was therefore elected 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.
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