Australian Federal Elections: the vanquished Quiz

Answer: Tony Abbott

In Australian politics, the Prime Minister is the leader of the party who controls a majority in the House of Representatives. As a result of the 2010 election Labor held 72 seats, the Liberal/National coalition held 72 seats and the remaining 6 seats were held by crossbenchers: Adam Bandt from the Australian Greens, Tony Crook from the National Party of Western Australia, and independents Andrew Wilkie, Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Bob Katter.

After three weeks of intense negotiations between the crossbench and leaders of both major parties, Bandt, Wilkie, Oakeshott and Windsor opted to support the Labor Party, making Julia Gillard the Prime Minister.

Answer: John Howard

John Howard's tenure as one of Australia's longest-serving Prime Ministers came to an abrupt end on 24 November, 2007. Labor picked up 23 extra seats with a 5.44% swing, installing Kevin Rudd as the first Queenslander to win a federal election since Andrew Fisher in 1910.

Answer: Mark Latham

Opinion polls at the beginning of the six-week campaign had Labor in front, but the lead changed back and forth as the election date drew nearer. Ultimately the Liberal/National Coalition won a sizeable victory, including an unexpected Senate majority. Mark Latham retired from the party leadership and his seat of Werriwa in January 2005 due to ill health, and in his post-politics life fired stinging barbs at a number of his former colleagues.

Answer: Kim Beazley

2001 was Kim Beazley's second unsuccessful attempt to take the Prime Ministership from John Howard. The campaign was marked by the so-called "Tampa affair" and a focus on national security following the September 11 attacks on the United States. After failing to make any inroads into the government's majority in the House of Representatives, Beazley stepped down from the Labor leadership in favour of Simon Crean.

Answer: Kim Beazley

After the distribution of preferences, Labor, led by Kim Beazley, received 51% of votes in the House of Representatives to the Coalition's 49%. However, the strong vote was not enough to form government as the Coalition won 80 of the 150 seats. John Howard survived a 4.6% swing--the largest against a first-term government since 1934--to win a second term as Prime Minister while Beazley's strong performance saw him retain the job as Labor leader.

Answer: Paul Keating

Labor lost 31 seats in the crushing electoral defeat, in which the party received its lowest primary vote in more than 60 years. Paul Keating, who was first elected to parliament at the age of 25 and had led the nation since December 1991, resigned the Labor Party leadership once the election result was clear. Keating is remembered as a first rate orator with a predilection for inventive language, as often as not used to tear apart his political opponents.

Answer: John Hewson

The Labor Party faced likely defeat in 1993 as the electorate was still reeling from the recent recession, made worse by Prime Minister Keating's description of the downturn as "the recession we had to have". Former economics professor Dr Hewson proposed a range of policies aimed at economic recovery, including unpopular changes to Medicare and industrial relations and a 15% Goods and Services Tax (GST).

These ideas didn't go down well and Labor managed to win a fifth term in office, and even increased its majority by two seats.

Answer: Andrew Peacock

Yes, the respective candidates for the Prime Ministership were named Hawke and Peacock. The media really enjoyed that. Sadly for them, it would be another 20 years before Wayne Swan was to become deputy leader of the Labor Party, so we didn't get to enjoy three birds at once.

Andrew Peacock resigned from the leadership of the Liberal Party after the 1990 election, in which the Coalition received 50.1% of the two-party preferred vote but won nine fewer seats than Labor.

Answer: John Howard

The 1987 poll was a double dissolution election, meaning that the entire Senate as well as all seats in the House of Representatives were up for grabs. Hawke focused on disunity within the conservative side of politics: Opposition leader John Howard was fighting personal attacks from his predecessor Andrew Peacock, and to make matters worse the Liberal and National parties were in direct competition to each other in a number of seats. Labor went on to win 86 of the 148 seats in the House of Representatives.

Answer: Andrew Peacock

The 1984 election was marked by an unusually long campaign period (10 weeks) and the creation of 24 new electorates due to a change in the way the number of seats in parliament were determined. The campaign also featured the first televised debate between major party leaders in Australian history.

Peacock, who had served as Liberal Party leader since Malcolm Fraser stepped down in March 1983, performed better than expected against the supremely popular Hawke and retained his role despite the defeat. However, after ongoing leadership speculation and lack of support from his rival John Howard, Peacock resigned from the position less than a year later.