A leadership challenge? Future strengths and present weaknesses

Perhaps the media should be better behaved. But are the media the underlying cause for all this leadership speculation? Or are they merely taking advantage of a weakness in our system?

Are the media in the UK-similar for the pervasiveness of the Murdoch media but augmented by the existence of Page 3 girls-more restrained and responsible? I wonder if British newspapers would hesitate for a minute if they believed they could affect a change in the party leader.

Hmmmm. Perhaps not.

A better place, then, to lay responsibility for endless leadership speculation, frequent challenges and occasional knifings is in the political system itself. In particular, the mechanism by which party leaders are chosen in Australia and the ease with which challenges can be launched and won.

Coup, attempted coups and idle day-dreaming about leadership coups are not behaviours specific to the ALP. We all remember the Hawke-Keating challenges. But we ought not to forget the attempt-and success-at ousting John Gorton from the Prime Ministership, installing William McMahon, in 1971. Or that McMahon was challenged for the Liberal Party leadership and overthrown by Billy Snedden in 1972. In turn, Snedden's leadership was challenged by Fraser in 1974. Snedden was soon replaced in-you guessed it-another leadership challenge by Fraser in 1975. An unsuccessful insurrection on Fraser's Prime Ministership was, of course, launched by Andrew Peacock in 1981. The point of these examples is to demonstrate that, in both parties, there is a long tradition of party leadership challenges.

The long tradition is a product of the way leaders are chosen. Pure and simple. It is just so easy to challenge. The only thing easier that challenging for the party leadership is to speculate about a challenge.

It is easy to forget that leadership speculation is constant in Australian politics, irrespective of party. Remember Peter Costello? Costello resisted the urge to challenge John Howard for the leadership, but he so easily could have challenged. In any case, conjecture and gossip about Costello and Howard was endless and nauseating. And, just as in 2007 – 2013, it distracted us from policy issues. It also preoccupied much of both Howard and Costello's time, which likely could have been better spent thinking about other things.

The media wastes their time on speculation-but only because there is something real to speculate about. In essence, the media exploit a weakness that exists. Perhaps they shouldn't; but the weakness is there. Why not get rid of that weakness? Why not take the source of that conjecture away? Why not make it pointless to speculate about who is going to challenge this week?

Leadership conventions would achieve this. There are a whole bunch of other arguments to be made in favour of leadership conventions. They increase the legitimacy of parties; they encourage civic participation in politics and in political parties; they ensure the public knows their leaders before choosing them; they encourage identity and affiliation with the leader. For today, however, the chief argument must be that they can stop the destructive, destabilizing cycle of leadership speculation, challenges and coups.

We ought to remember that Australia was once an electoral innovator. The secret ballot is known as the "Australian ballot" around the world, precisely because of our willingness to experiment-and invent-things that made politics work better. We are clearly behind when it comes to choosing our alternative Prime Ministers. Perhaps we ought to catch up?