Change and Continuity in the Ideology of Australian Prime Ministers: The Governor-General's Speeches, 1946–2010

Abstract

In Australian politics, narratives have developed around the ideological lineage of prime ministers from the same party so that, for example, Howard is often compared to Menzies and Hawke to Whitlam. In this article we examine the extent to which the ideology (left–right) of prime ministers from the same party has changed over time. We analyse the contents of speeches the Governor-General delivered at the opening of parliament between 1946 and 2010. We validate a number of narratives around the ideological lineage of prime ministers in relation to their party predecessors, and invalidate others, by analysing the speeches using the Comparative Manifestos Project coding scheme. This article also argues that parties do matter and shows how the addition of coding for ideology can complement the Policy Agendas Project method.

Keywords::

• Australian politics
• ideology
• policy agendas

Notes

¹The research in this paper is supported by the ARC Discovery grant DP110102622 ‘Policy Agendas in the Australian Commonwealth Government’.

²Our discussion concentrates on Robert Menzies, Malcolm Fraser and John Howard because John Gorton, William McMahon and Harold Holt had only short terms in office.

³See the Manifesto Project Database at: < http://manifestoproject.wzb.eu>.

⁴The Governor-General has no influence over the policy content of the speech. Occasionally a GG may suggest a modest rewording of phrases used within the speech but this is the limit of their influence (Dowding et al. 2010, 537–38; and personal correspondence with Peter Boyce, University of Tasmania).

⁵Further details are available upon request.

⁶Where RS_t and RS_{t – 1} are the Rile scores at time t and time t _-1.

⁷Newspoll shows that voters favoured Labor over the Liberals as the party ‘best equipped to handle health and Medicare’ in 56 of 58 polls taken between 1990 and July 2010 (the exceptions being 1991 and 1992). For education, Newspoll shows that Labor held a lead in 30 out of 31 polls since 1991, with one tied in 2002. But in 42 out of 49 polls between 1989 and 2008, the Liberals were seen as the party best equipped to handle taxation. See < http://www.newspoll.com.au/index.pl?action=adv_search>.

⁸The Policy Agendas Project examines the stability of policy agendas over time. The original project of Baumgartner and Jones (1993) inspired a similar exercise, the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP), in countries around the world. Australia is now a part of the CAP.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keith Dowding

Keith Dowding is Professor of Political Science in the School of Politics and International Relations and Research Director, College of Arts and Social Science, at the Australian National University. Nicholas Faulkner is a doctoral student at Monash University and was employed through the University of Queensland Research Scholarship Program. Andrew Hindmoor is Associate Professor of Politics in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Aaron Martin is Lecturer in Political Science in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.