Factors Contributing To The Change Of Prime Ministers In Australia Over The Last Decade

Political Instability and its Impact on Society

Discuss About The Prime Ministerial Performance Understanding.

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate the important factors that have led to the change of the prime ministers in the last ten years. It is a very concerning factor that there have been five prime ministers in Australia within the last five years. The matter of fact is there is no fixed tenure for the Australian prime ministers. They are allowed to retain their jobs as prime minister as long as they are the Member of Parliaments. Some social and political factors have been the main reasons of this entire mess. This has impacted on the entire social structure very badly indeed. Australia has been suffering from several social disorders because of the change of the prime ministers in the last decade. However, the people in the country are confused about the face that will represent their government. The contemporary Australian politics has been feeling its impact though the policies of the government have remained almost the same. The common public does not feel any way to show their concern over this matter. However, some ministers have also argued about the policy changes of the government have been the main reason of the continuous change of the prime ministers. The proper arguments would be put up in this essay effectively.

In this context the names and their tenures will be discussed as it is very important to know to take the discussion further. The first prime minister in this entire context was Kevin Rudd who belonged to the Labor Party in Australia. He served as the prime minister of Australia from December 2007 to June 2010 (Craig 2013). He had faced some controversial management as argued by the experts. The controversies that surrounded him were regarding the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders. He had apologized to the children of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders who had been taken away from the families by the Australian government agencies till the 1970s. Rudd had also called off the Australian troops from Iraq and signed the climate pact (Kefford 2013). The reasons for his defeat have been many as well. After winning the elections very easily, his popularity began to go down as he had begun an emission-trading scheme that was a part of his environmental strategy (Craig 2013) He had started the practice of earning high taxes from the profits in the mining sector as well. These things went against him altogether and he the Deputy Prime Minister of the country proved to be a challenge to him in terms of his leadership of Australia. He had to step down from his post in 2010 after losing the support of most Labor party leaders (Kefford 2013).

Review of Each Prime Minister and their Tenure

The second person in this context was Julia Gillard who also belonged to the Labor Party as well. She had served in the top post of Australian democracy from June 2010 to June 2013. Some of her controversial moments were when she passed the laws on the trading scheme and taxes on mining (Walsh 2013). She had given a speech on misogyny where she had completely slammed the opposition party (Donaghue 2015). Thus she caught the attention of most people. The critics had been very much active about the policy she had taken about the processing the asylum seekers to offshore. The incident took place that a ship was carrying almost 90 asylum seekers when it had crashed in Christian Island and around 50 people were being killed. This incident had made the people and the leaders of Labor party go against her. She was defeated by Kevin Rudd again the re-election.

Kevin Rudd had again served as the Prime Minister of Australia for a very short term of three months from June 2013 to September 2013. Rudd had completely made an overhaul of the climate pacts and the asylum policies implemented by the former prime minister (Craig 2013) Another important step he took was to appoint 11 women as ministers in his cabinet out of 30. The support for him did not last long since the voters had favored the opposition of Liberal-national coalition. Thereafter the opposition party had completely taken over. Rudd had completely taken himself away from politics since he had been facing high amount of criticism from the Labor party (Weller 2014).

The next person in the line was Tony Abbott who was in the post of Prime Minister of Australia from September 2013 to September 2015. Abbott had been very firm in his position against the ISIS. Under his leadership, Australia had also taken part in the air strikes in Iraq and Syria. He had also compared the ISIS terrorists with the Nazis. The leadership of Tony Abbott had given birth to many controversies such as the border patrol called the Operation Sovereign Borders was controlled by the military (Readfearn 2014). Another reason of his popularity being shortened was the fact that people could not accept his decision of cutting the grants for education and healthcare systems. However, Abbott’s position in the cabinet was at stake as his minister of communications department Malcolm Turnbull had defeated him by the margin of 54-44 votes (Savva 2016).

Factors Contributing to the Change of Prime Ministers in Australia

The last name in this list is of the current Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull. He belongs to the Liberal party. He has affirmed his position in some topics like the climate change and gay marriage. He is an ex lawyer and a businessman. He has all the attributes to a great leader for the country as well.

It has been observed in this context that the main reason for this changing of these prime ministers in this county have been mostly political and the public policies have led to the change of these changes. The public policies like the climate change impacts, asylum seekers policies and others have been pivotal in the change of the prime ministers of Australia (Fielding et al. 2012) Australia is being called as the ‘Italy of the Southern hemisphere’. The entire country has been going through a roller-coaster ride in terms of politics. The critics have argued on whether this would bring a change in the policies that are implemented for the welfare of the public. One of the main factors in this context is the ways these policies have impacted on the common people of the country. Actually this has been very important to note that the Australian people are quite clear about the reasons why they are voting for and what do they want (Curtin 2016).

The political stability is desired by the people of the country as it would be very much influential for the people. The international organizations will also look to expand into Australia before they expand into Australia. This is why it is argued the Australian government should have passed the bill of four or five year terms of the Prime Minister of the country. Thus the people in the country would feel safe under one leader and they can get used to his style of leading the country into a sustainable future. The emission-trading scheme has been considered as one of the key policies in the entire mix. Kevin Rudd had declared that the climate change is one of the main challenges in the present age for the human beings (Bailey et al. 2012). They had begun their Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in order to provide the climate with the needed sustainability. The mining and electricity sectors had a great impact as a result of this scheme adopted by Rudd. He had ignored the entire issue of interim carbon tax (Bailey et al. 2012). He had taken part in the Copenhagen Climate conference. In the year 2011, the opposition leaders Tony Abbott from the Liberal party had completely opposed the plans for the carbon tax to be initiated by Rudd (Talberg, Hui and Loynes 2013). After Rudd, Julia Gillard had rated the carbon price at a fixed rate. However, this was given political color too by labeling it as ‘great big tax on everything’ (Spash and Lo 2012).

Public Policies and Political Instability

In this context this can be also said that Tony Abbott had suggested a different way of approaching this situation. He opined about some other ways by which he could this emission rate could be standardized. He thought about the Direct Action Scheme. This scheme was pointed out to be a ‘bullshit’ plan indeed. This climate change policy had become the centre of headache for the experts. It is almost impossible for everyone to reach to a proper conclusion for this issue. The politics is also used in terms of gaining the advantage over the opposing parties. However, the electricity sector is also being hampered by these issues. This policy on climate change has undergone certain changes in the recent times but it is almost impossible to change the minds of the Liberal and National parties. However the Labor party is expected to come up with a new standpoint of their own. Thus there have been many issues regarding the policies for the environment and common people as well. The critics have argued over the inclusion of politics in the humanitarian works.

The contemporary politics has been affected a lot as well due to the clash of the opinions and the controversial events that these prime ministers have included in. This could lead to a great fuss on the political terms. The diplomatic issues of the country have been hampered as well. The country needs to choose a political face who could lead to the betterment of the country in many ways by complying with the strategies. It is a great matter of fact that the foreign affairs of the country have been greatly damaged. Many changes have come during this change of the prime ministers in the country. It is very important to have a good image or influence on the international stage for Australia (Strangio, Hart and Walter 2013). However, in the last few years it has not been up to that mark indeed. It is because the Australian prime ministers in the last decade have not been able to serve long term tenure. None of them have been able to serve at least five years. This is why the global leaders have not been able to get acquainted with the leader of Australia. The prime ministers have also been unable to imprint a deep impression on the international stages (Jotzo 2012). It is the personal chemistry that is very important in order to bring a good reputation among the leaders. This should be very helpful to bring new investments from the other countries for the expansion of trades and businesses. As the current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has supported the gay marriage in the country, it has also led to some criticisms indeed. The climate change issues have also reflected the decline of the inner relations between the political parties as well (Head et al. 2014). From the viewpoint of the common people, they are not getting the ample time to get familiar with the personal beliefs and styles of the country leaders (Chen 2013). This is why they are getting confused about whom to cast their votes for. These are the burning issues that the entire country is facing from the political aspects. This is why the different issues and challenges will have to be considered by the government positively.

Conclusion

This essay can be concluded by saying that Australia is on the verge of a great political problems. As they have changed their prime ministers five times in the last ten years, they need to get a fixed prime minister just to make the common people get familiar with that person. The history of those five ministers has been given in this essay along with the reasons of their defeat. The contemporary political aspects have been discussed here along with the implications over the public policies that were being adopted by the former prime ministers.

References

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Chen, P.J., 2013. Australian politics in a digital age. ANU Press.

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Curtin, J., 2016. Australia. European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook, 55(1), pp.14-21.

Donaghue, N., 2015. Who gets played by ‘the gender card’? A critical discourse analysis of coverage of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s sexism and misogyny speech in the Australian print media. Australian Feminist Studies, 30(84), pp.161-178.

Fielding, K.S., Head, B.W., Laffan, W., Western, M. and Hoegh-Guldberg, O., 2012. Australian politicians’ beliefs about climate change: political partisanship and political ideology. Environmental Politics, 21(5), pp.712-733.

Head, L., Adams, M., McGregor, H.V. and Toole, S., 2014. Climate change and Australia. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(2), pp.175-197.

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Kefford, G., 2013. The presidentialisation of Australian politics? Kevin Rudd’s leadership of the Australian Labor Party. Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(2), pp.135-146.

Readfearn, G., 2014. What does Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott really think about climate change. The Guardian, 16.

Savva, N., 2016. The Road to Ruin: how Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government. Scribe Publications.

Spash, C.L. and Lo, A.Y., 2012. Australia’s carbon tax: a sheep in wolf’s clothing?.

Strangio, P., Hart, P.T. and Walter, J. eds., 2013. Understanding prime-ministerial performance: Comparative perspectives. OUP Oxford.

Talberg, A., Hui, S. and Loynes, K., 2013. Australian climate change policy: a chronology. Parliamentary Library.

Walsh, K.A., 2013. The stalking of Julia Gillard: How the media and Team Rudd brought down the Prime Minister.management & Unwin.

Weller, P., 2014. Kevin Rudd: Twice Prime Minister. Melbourne Univ. Publishing.