Since 1971, there have been 17 Leadership spills – 12 have been successful (I.e. the leader of the party changed), 5 were unsuccessful; between both major parties – the Liberal Party of Australia (LPA) and the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
When it comes to spilled milk, there is no use crying over it; but this article will discuss the ‘watermark’ which spill motions have left on Australian Politics.
Spill Motion;
In Australian politics, a leadership spill is a declaration that the leadership of a Parliamentary party is vacant, and open for re-election. A spill may involve all leadership positions (Leader and Deputy Leader in both houses), or just the Leader.
Leadership spills have happened more times than I first thought. However there have been 7 in the last 7 years (since 2008), which leaves 10 ‘spills’ in 26 years before that (1971-2007). Off those figures, you could deduce that spills have gone from being every 2.6 years, to being (on average) every year.
So spills are not a recent phenomenon.
I observed some repeat offenders:
tangible.blog 