Introduction

This presentation examines the history of ministerial dismissals and resignations in the Commonwealth Government of Australia from 1901 to 2025. Using data drawn from the Parliamentary Handbook and other archival sources, it explores the reasons behind these events and the career paths of affected parliamentarians. The analysis highlights patterns over time and raises questions about accountability, performance, and public expectations of elected representatives.

Commonwealth dismissals and resignation by decade and reason

Dismissals and resignations have been consistent since Federation in 1901, however the graph shows an increase in recent decades, reflecting party instability and repeated leadership spills in the governing Ministry.

It is worth noting the difference between an involuntary dismissal (for example due to personal behaviour or misconduct), compared to personally motivated resignation (for example policy disagreement or dispute with the Prime Minister).

As politics becomes more factional within major parties, disputes with the Prime Minister have risen as a leading cause of resignation.

The pie chart show the cumulative total of each dismissal or resignation reason, providing insight on the most prevalent categories since Federation. The top 5 leading causes are dispute with the Prime Minister (35%), Ministerial impropriety which is defined as actions or conduct that violate principals of ethical behaviors, accountability and good governance, including but not limited to conflicts of interest, misuse of public resources, and breaches of confidentiality (20%), policy disagreement (14%), personal behaviour (6%) and conflict of interest (5%).

Dismissals and resignation by Party

The above graph shows dismissals and resignations as trend lines, broken down by Party. The background shading shows the Party in power since federation, to give context to any gaps in dismissals and resignations by a particular party, as a Government will only elect members of their own Party to Ministry positions (and therefore only Governing Party members can resign or be dismissed).

A byproduct of this graph design is that it gives perspective on the number of years each of the two major parties have been in leadership since Federation, particularly the Liberal Party which has had the longest single duration in power between the 1940s and the 1970s, a period of more than 20 years.

It shows that the highest number of dismissals and resignations for each major party has occured in the last 15 years, with Labor’s largest dismissal and resignation scourge occuring in 2013 under the Gillard Ministry, and for the Coalition government in 2018 under the Turnbull Ministry.

Leading Ministies for dismissals and resignations

The above graph ranks the top 15 Ministries in terms of leading numbers of resignations or dismissals. As identified in the previous graph, the Coalition tops the list associated with the Turnbull leadership spill in 2018 when he was succeeded by MP Scott Morrison, followed by Gillard for a similar leadership spill in 2013 when former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd retook the top job.

Both of the two leading dismissal and resignation governments were in their second term of leadership, and more broadly 10 of the top 15 leaders were in a subsequent term of government. This could indicate that the longer a government retains Ministry the higher the chance of internal party disputes and disruption, though further analysis would be neeed to definitively understand this phenomenon. It is also worth noting that the sample size of dismissals and resignations is fairly limited, with less than 100 total occurrences since Federation in 1901.

Continued service beyond dismissal or resignation

Resignation or dismissal from a Ministry position does not necessary correlate to dismissal or resignation from Parliament altogether (either in the Senate or the House of Representatives). To illustrate this point, this chart looks at the length of service following a dismissal or resignation, and shows that in general, politicians can and do continue to work as a representative for their electorate.

The box plot provides further analysis on the distribution of time spent in Parliament following a resignation or dismissal. The outliers, which have been verified as being a correct reflection of the continued service of the individuals they represent, demonstrate that a political career can span decades beyond resignation or dismissal from a Ministry position.

Quick facts on dismissals and resignations

This fact sheet shows high level statistics that provide further insight into political longevity beyond dismissal and resignation. The average period served post resignation or dismissal is 5.84 years, with just 1.1% of total resignations or dismissals resulting in a politician departing Parliament altogether (1 case in 100 events). Further, as is the case for Alan Tudge, Henry Gullet, James Fenton, Jim Cairns, John Forrest, Leslie Bury, Mick Young and William Hughes, being dismissed or resigning from the Ministry can be repeated, though there are no examples of parliamentarians doing so more than twice. The average number of dismissals per Ministry is 3.12, which is approximately 0.8 per year. Today, eight parliamentarians are representing their respective electorates while having been previously dismissed or resigned from the Ministry.

Comparing resignations to dismissals

The above charts provide further analysis of dismissals and resignations, by categorising the reasons at those levels. It does not account of resignations that are motivated by misconduct or poor behaviour, but gives some indication of the split between those that were dismissed, and those that stood down from Ministry positions. It shows that 40% of the total cohort were dismissed from their position, with this being particularly prevalent between the 1970s and the 1990s (largest proprortion of total number in those decades). The data also tells us that the average length of service post dismissal is shorter when compared to resignations, but is still a significant amount of time at 4.76 years - this is further demonstrated by the box plot. An interesting outlier for the dismissals on the box plot shows that despite being dismissed from the Ministry - an individual can remain in Parliament for almost two decades. Finally, of all those who have been dismissed from the Ministry, just one individual left Parliament entirely within 30 days of that dismissal.