The Definitive Ranking Of Australian Leadership Spills By How Utterly Cooked They Were
Featuring: Three stooges, an empty chair and a brain explosion.
Some people will try to tell you that cricket is Australia’s national pastime, but for me, the only sport that matters is the humble leadership spill (just kidding, it’s not a sport, it’s actually hugely corrosive to our democracy).
If you’re not familiar with the term, a ‘spill’ occurs when the leadership of a political party is declared vacant, usually as a result of someone challenging the leader. And for the last decade, Australia has been enthralled by spill after spill after spill.
Following the truly bungled attempt to roll NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian this week, we thought it was time to rank Australia’s leadership spills by cookedness.
An important note: This list only covers what we consider to be the Modern Era of Australian spills — from Julia Gillard’s surprise attack in 2010 to Scott Morrison’s come-through-the-middle victory in 2018.
8. The Three Stooges Vs Gladys Berejiklian, 2019
When is a spill not a spill? When it’s called off before it even begins! Earlier this week, residents of NSW awoke to the news that Premier Gladys Berejiklian was facing a leadership spill over her handling of a bill to decriminalise abortion in the state. And then, just as fast as you could say “Barnaby Joyce doesn’t get to lecture anyone on family values”, it was over.
It all started on Monday night when three hard-right Liberal backbenchers and abortion rights opponents — Tanya Davies, Lou Amato and Matthew Mason-Cox — emailed colleagues to say they wanted to spill the leadership because their proposed amendments to the abortion legislation had no chance of succeeding (which is, uh, how politics works. If you don’t have the numbers, you lose).
The only problem(s)? They had no candidate to replace Berejiklian, they hadn’t warned their colleagues that the spill was coming, and they hadn’t done the numbers. Pretty soon, everyone was laughing at them and declaring their support for the current premier. With no chance of succeeding, the MPs withdrew the motion calling for a spill, and the whole show was over.
7. Rudd Vs Gillard, Round III, 2013
The third film in a trilogy rarely lives up to its predecessors, and so it was with Gillard vs Rudd, round three. How could you possibly live up to the hype of your “Kevin Gets Eviscerated”, or “Julia Gillard Stuns The Nation”? (more on those below). No, the much-anticipated climax of the three-year Rudd-Gillard saga landed with a thud in June 2013.
After years of guerrilla warfare from Rudd’s backers, and a stunning mixture of bad luck and incompetence from Gillard, Rudd’s campaign to reclaim the top job finally succeeded when a handful of Gillard’s loyal soldiers saw the writing on the wall and switched their support to Rudd in order to save as many seats as possible.
Rudd quickly called an election and got smashed by Tony Abbott. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.
4. Turnbull Vs Abbott, 2015
What this spill lacks in style, it makes up for in substance. By which I mean we finally got rid of Tony Abbott, and the whole country breathed a sigh of relief.
From almost the day he was elected, Tony Abbott had been an incredibly unpopular prime minister. His disastrous 2014 budget sent his poll numbers into a tailspin, and bizarre decisions like re-introducing knighthoods cemented his status as a deeply weird unit.
It was a Monday, September 14, and speculation was rife that Malcolm Turnbull was about to challenge the terminally unpopular PM for the top job, but Abbott was adamant he wouldn’t be dragged into “Canberra games”.
After Question Time, Turnbull accompanied the PM from the chamber to tell him he was challenging. Turnbull then held a press conference where he laid out his rationale for challenging, and absolutely tore Abbott’s record as PM to shreds.
Abbott, in an attempt to stem the tide of votes switching to Turnbull, quickly called a spill for later the night, but it was too late. Turnbull won the ballot 55 to 45 and was elected Australia’s 29th prime minister.
What makes this spill stand out is its efficiency. Unlike other ramshackle spills on this list, which were thrown together at the last minute without proper planning, this was a precision strike. Turnbull’s team spent months doing the numbers and undermining their leader, and it was over within hours. No one seemed to mind all that much.
6. Rudd Vs Gillard, Round Two, Electric Boogaloo, 2012
The rancid meat in the mouldy Rudd/Gillard sandwich.
After Gillard deposed Rudd in 2010, it was clear that Rudd wanted revenge. After months of speculation, things came to a head when Rudd was overseas in his capacity as foreign minister, and Gillard declined to defend him from an attack by fellow cabinet minister Simon Crean. Rudd resigned his post and returned to Australia, and Gillard called a spill.
Over the next two days, Gillard’s allies in the Labor party absolutely destroyed Rudd’s reputation, attacking his character and temperament. It was one of the most brutal character assassinations in Australian political history.
Gillard won easily. Rudd was humiliated and retreated to the backbench to plot his next move.
5. Dutton Vs Turnbull, feat. Morrison, 2018
Remember that weird period where it really seemed like Peter Dutton would become prime minister? Man, we really dodged a bullet, then immediately stepped into the path of a different bullet with that one.
It all started in August last year, when conservatives who were fed up with Malcolm Turnbull (because he was too much of a leftie, if you can believe that), sent Peter Dutton in to blow himself up. Following newspaper speculation that Dutton was preparing to launch an attack, Turnbull beat him to the punch by calling a surprise spill on himself, but only narrowly survived. The result was so close that Turnbull’s leadership was terminal, and it was only a matter of time before Dutton struck again.
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Turnbull, quite reasonably, said that he’d just won a spill, and was under no obligation to call another one until a majority of the party asked for it. This lead to a hilarious few days as Dutton’s supporters tried desperately to acquire enough signatures to force a second spill (in retrospect, the length of time this took should have been a warning sign).
Meanwhile, a group of senior ministers told Turnbull he’d lost the support of a majority of the party, and that he should resign. These people were wrong. It turns out Dutton’s supporters — including, worryingly, the finance minister — couldn’t count. The spill was engineered and cheered on by a minority of the Liberal partyroom, and a cheer squad in the conservative media. No one wanted this! It was a bad idea! Cool!
The petition finally got enough signatures, but only when some reluctant moderates who just wanted the whole shitshow to end added their names to it. Turnbull resigned, allowing his deputy, Julie Bishop, and Treasurer, Scott Morrison, a clear run at Dutton. Bishop was eliminated in the first round, but Dutton didn’t secure enough votes to win. Most of Bishop’s supporters then switched to Morrison, who became PM.
Scott Morrison and the Coalition deservedly lost the next federal election after abusing Australia’s trust time and time again, and Australia is now flourishing under the inspired leadership of Bill Shorten. I’ve been in a coma for five months.
3. Gillard Vs Rudd: The Spill That Started It All, 2010
Sure, there were spills before this one, and there were spills after, but this is the Patient Zero of spills. This is the one that tilted Australian politics on its axis, kicking off a decade of destruction that (maybe, hopefully) ended when Malcolm Turnbull was deposed last year.
It was 7pm on June 23, 2010, when the ABC reported that Julia Gillard, backed by Labor’s factional heavyweights, was preparing to challenge Kevin Rudd. Behind closed doors, Rudd tried to convince Gillard to drop the challenge, but as it became clear that she had a majority in the party, Gillard allegedly reneged on a deal not to challenge.
Breaking: Kevin Rudd's leadership under siege tonight from some of Labor's most influential factional warlords. More to come
— ABC News (@abcnews) June 23, 2010
By the next morning, Rudd realised his support had crumbled and decided not to contest the leadership, and Gillard was elected unopposed. Australia’s first female PM had been installed in a late-night coup that few Australians saw coming, and Australian politics hasn’t been the same since.
Not as dramatic as other spills on this list, but for the sheer breadth of its impact, we simply have to stan.
2. Empty Chair Vs Tony Abbott, 2015
It should come as no surprise that Tony Abbott lost the leadership to Malcolm Turnbull in September 2015, once you remember how close he came to losing the leadership to literally no one earlier that year.
It was January 2015, and Liberals everywhere were struggling with Tony Abbott as their standard bearer. The LNP government in Queensland had just lost an unloseable election and the country was scratching its collective chin at Abbott’s baffling decision to give a knighthood to Prince Philip.
Government backbenchers were nervous about their seats, and two of them — Western Australians Luke Simpkins and Don Randall — called for a leadership spill.
There was only one problem — there were no other contenders.
In a weekend of feverish speculation, Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop both confirmed they wouldn’t be contenders, despite polls indicating they were far more popular with the electorate.
The spill motion went ahead, with Abbott as the only contender, and 39 of his colleagues voted against him anyway.
It became known as the ’empty chair’ spill, and Abbott was visibly shaken by the result. He asked his colleagues for six months to turn things around.
In the end, they gave him seven, then they gave him the boot.
1. Simon Crean’s Brain Explosion, 2013
Cast your mind back to March 2013, it’s almost three years since Julia Gillard rolled Kevin Rudd, and her poll numbers are in the toilet following the introduction of the unpopular carbon tax, and a series of scandals largely out of her control. Kevin Rudd, now on the backbench, remains a popular figure with the public, if not his own party, and his supporters have been actively undermining Gillard’s leadership. But Rudd had always said he wouldn’t challenge again.
Something has to give.
Step forward former Labor leader Simon Crean, who held a surprise press conference and told Rudd it was time to put up or shut up. If Rudd wanted the top job, he’d have to take it, and today was the day.
But, crucially, Crean never spoke to Rudd before holding the press conference.
Gillard called a spill for later that day and immediately sacked Crean from cabinet. And then, just 10 minutes before the vote, Rudd announced he wouldn’t be running. He said it was because he’d vowed not to challenge, but the truth is he just didn’t have the numbers.
Gillard stood unopposed and was duly re-elected. It was a huge clusterfuck from a government that really couldn’t handle any more clusterfucks.
As a final blow, it was later revealed that Rudd had actually gotten in touch with Crean to tell him not to pull the trigger, but Crean just missed the text.
Rob Stott is the Managing Editor of Junkee Media, and has covered nine federal leadership spills in 10 years of journalism, which seems like too many. Follow him @Rob_Stott.