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Notes -
I disagree, changing leader usually results in a better election result - if it didn't the party usually would not change. Yes, we went through a period of frequent political knifings - but is anyone seriously arguing that the Liberals would have won 3 elections in a row if they had stuck with Abbott? Or that the 2013 Labor wipeout would not have been far worse if they hadn't switched from Gillard to Rudd to save the furniture?
Neither do I think it's somehow inherently problematic or undemocratic to change PM mid term. You elect your local MP, he remains your local MP. If political alliances shift and change throughout the term of Parliament, well, that's the job.
I think the 2013 election would probably have gone better for Labour had they not switched back to Rudd. Knifing Abbott was a good idea.
Not sure what you mean by "save the furniture".
There is a point at which excess knifing gets in the way of governing; that's what I'm getting at. As I said, though, mostly self-correcting; note that Labour put in a "no more midterm knifings without a resignation" policy after 2013.
I feel like you've forgotten how brutal the polling for Labor was under Gillard. The last Newspoll before she was knifed had a two-party-preferred vote of 57-43 and primaries of 48 to 29 in favour of the Liberals. Those numbers immediately improved once Rudd took over, and though the sugar hit faded somewhat by the time of the actual election, the result was a much more manageable 53-47 kind of split.
This was the whole reason Labor made the change - most of them absolutely hated Rudd on a personal level and quite liked Gillard. But they also knew that they were going to get gutted and lose an extra 20 or 30 seats unless they knifed her. Thus the decision to "save the furniture" (flood metaphor - you can't stop the house from getting flooded but you can at least save the furniture and mitigate the losses a bit).
I don't follow polls that much. Only looked at the Voice polls and made the OP because somebody mentioned them.
You win this point.
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