Yesterday, the ruling party members voted against Prime Minister Tony Abbot, and brought in Malcolm Turnbull. I am very very new to the country, and have no idea how the Parliament in Australia works; how the parties are managed; what do they stand for etc etc, however I am learning!
Anyway, there was a comment somewhere about how quickly the PMs in Australia have changed in the last 5 years. This is the 4th Prime Minister that Australia would have in about 2 years time, and that got me thinking if this leadership position was more stable earlier? I assumed it was, and that Prime Ministers were spending more time in the position! That got me to finding the data, start dates, end dates, term and all that! Here is a graph of what I could gather!
Turns out that it has been like this forever, and this is NOT a reflection on Australia or its Prime Ministers. This is probably how politics has worked forever!
Here are some more graphics…
Its interesting to note that even though Labor had almost 50% more Prime Ministers in the total time starting 1901, they have spent slightly less time than Liberals on the seat. Can be attributed to many reasons, however an interesting statistic anyway!
The parties have merged and changed shape over years, so this might not be a 100% accurate representation, however still gives a fair idea of how the structure has been!
Primary source of data : http://australianpolitics.com/lists/prime-ministers-since-1901