From Menzies to Malcolm: the careers of Australia's prime ministers visualised

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The road to the prime ministership is rarely without setback. See how Malcolm Turnbull's journey compares to other Australian prime ministers.

'A game of snakes and ladders'

What can Malcolm Turnbull learn from his post-war predecessors to make sure he's remembered as a Menzies and not forgotten as a Fadden?

As Tony Abbott can attest, securing the nation's top job is only half the battle, with the recently deposed prime minister labelling politics "a game of snakes and ladders".

Turnbull's journey from entering Parliament to The Lodge is the shortest for a conservative prime minister since Arthur Fadden in 1941.

But our newest prime minister will hope the similarities end there. Fadden — who took over after Robert Menzies was sacked while overseas — only managed to hang on to power for just over a month before his conservative coalition fell apart.

Still, that's not the record for our shortest prime ministership. That goes to Frank Forde, who stepped in after John Curtin died in office, before being replaced by Labor's 'light on the hill', Ben Chifley.

Menzies of course had another bite at the cherry, going on to become Australia's longest-serving prime minister, although he would have to endure a decade in the political wilderness before returning to power.

Our second longest-serving prime minister, John Howard, had to wait far longer than Menzies, clocking up over 20 years in his quest for the top job.

One thing Turnbull shares with that pair of long-term Lodge-dwellers — Howard and Menzies — is they "were both failures the first time they led the party", as Attorney-General George Brandis put it this week.

"In both cases, as they themselves said when they reflected back on their long careers, they learned from the mistakes they made the first time. And in fact it was the learning from the mistakes they made the first time that made them the leaders they were on the second and long periods of successful prime-ministership that they both enjoyed." — George Brandis

Not all comebacks end in success: Kevin Rudd's second stint as prime minister was short-lived, though most only ever saw his return as an attempt to save the furniture.

But Howard's "triple bypass" is the stuff of legend, brought in from the political wilderness six years after being dumped as opposition leader to take on his old nemesis Paul Keating.

Interestingly Keating's famous ambition didn't accelerate his rise, he had to wait even longer than Howard to grasp the prime ministership, which surely must have rankled in light of Bob Hawke's supersonic rise to the top.

And spare a thought for Harold Holt, who clocked up three decades in Parliament before becoming prime minister, only to disappear while swimming off the coast of Victoria two years into his first term.

Whatever the future holds for Turnbull the end is unlikely to be pretty; Robert Menzies was the last Australian prime minister to leave office on his own terms.

As Paul Keating told Julia Gillard after she lost the prime ministership: "We all get taken out in a box, love."

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Topics: federal-government, federal-elections, federal-parliament, australia

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