Worst Prime Minister in last 40 years?

Worst Prime Minister in Last 40 years ?

  • William McMahon

    Votes: 2 1.8%
  • Gough Whitlam

    Votes: 10 9.2%
  • Malcolm Fraser

    Votes: 7 6.4%
  • Bob Hawke

    Votes: 5 4.6%
  • Paul Keating

    Votes: 5 4.6%
  • John Howard

    Votes: 17 15.6%
  • Kevin Rudd

    Votes: 63 57.8%

  • Total voters
    109
  • Poll closed .
Being in my early forties, I have memories of Gough Whitlam being sent packing by the Governor General.
With the current inept government in place , it got me wondering - what are peoples thoughts on the worst prime Minister / Government since 1970?
My tip is Kevin Rudd by a whisker over Gough Whitlam.
 
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Nah

Gough had many redeeming qualities.

Hey, where is Ms Gillard in ur poll ? :)

PS, I cant vote on this one, I reckon they all have made good contributions at various levels.............the opposite poll I can have a go at though

ta
rolf
 
A really nice impartial poll. One the pollsters would be proud of. "Current pathetic inept".

Whatever your opinions I don't believe that such polarised posts belong to a friendly forum like this.
 
Being in my early forties, I have memories of Gough Whitlam being sent packing by the Governor General.
With the current inept government in place , it got me wondering - what are peoples thoughts on the worst prime Minister / Government since 1970?
My tip is Kevin Rudd by a whisker over Gough Whitlam.
The only problem with the list is all are past PM's,and with MrRudd it will take time to figure out if the failure in several area's that are still to come was due to his bumper sticker ideas , i was working on a roof when Gough Whitlam was sent out the back door,all the rest on your list did well.
willair.
 
Although numbers are still small, the survey shows that the more recent a leader is the stronger anti opinion there is.

This may or may not be due to the current incumbent. But probably not - vehement opinions have also been expressed against all previous leaders.

Maybe 50% of this forum would be too young to have been of working age during McMahon/Whitlam/Fraser and even Hawke's terms.

Anti opinion tends to mellow over time. For instance no one has so far voted against McMahon, even though even in his own party he was despised (read Hasluck's memoirs for instance - about the only Liberal who did not despise McMahon was John Howard).

Similarly Whitlam could have been accused of starting the welfare/hand-out mentality, and Fraser of being a protectionist and leaving a legacy of high inflation and unemployment.

But despite the hatred and division of the time thoughts of them mellow, as we will see with all previous governments, including Howard (at the moment) and Rudd's (when his period ends).

People even think of say Menzies and even Hawke as being great prime ministers, even though there was widespread opposition to them at the time and each had certain 'affairs' that did not reflect well on their government or certain ministers of it.
 
Compared to the NSW government I would say they are very ept.

Compared to NSW govt, just about anyone would be capable!! What a disaster!

I agree with Spiderman... we need the benefit of hindsight to see whether PM's were effective or not. So, for me KRudd is not even able to be assessed yet.

Pen
 
Compared to the NSW government I would say they are very ept.

hahah, GW humor at its best

Come to QLd for some comparison :) of govs..............we are selling the family silver AND the antique furniture to clear the gov amex.

NSW doesnt have enough of a credit rating to have an AMEX anymore :)

ta
rolf
 
by a whisker
by the rest of the cat
lets just see
affordable housing 11,000 houses and 380mil
built 55
schools
most of the builders moved from comm nd resi to schools as they got 1500 per sq to build a school as 1000 for comm and 800 for resi
the price to build a 25sq toilet was the same as a 85 sq 1 br unit
fruit pickers
this was a great deal you had half of the pacific island thinking that it was going to work
did it no
simple question does he know what he is doing
same as above no
he has no idea how to run a country
has no idea how to get a scheme to work
has no idea of how business works
and has no idea what he is doing
does he know how to get people thinking he knows what he is doing
yes
can he take peoples mind off the real problems
yes
is he a good polly
yes
and thats the problem
we have people that want to be pollys not real people
are they design who and what they are so people will vote for them.
thats why kev gets of rove and not allen jones or 2day fm and not the 6 thirty report
his people say get on why I like a rapper istead of why I lost 2 billion
affordable housing go to 50,000 new doctors
don't worry about how where or how we will get them but change the focus
and while you are there throw in stuff you can't or won't give
like houses for free or affordable house give away 11,000 houses just don't give them away no will know anyway.
bring in islander to pick fruit
just don't bring any in
this will make the problem of fruit pickers go away and also people will see us as helping our neighbours in effect we will do nothing but good pr
what do we all like kids
so put money into schools
aim it
no just put it in
if we throw 2 billion in it got to go somewhere and the more signs that go up saying kevin the better
so each site has to have we funded it.
run heaps of screening saying who funded it all over the place put it in kids lunch boxes if need be.
please give me one thing kev has said and it has happened
discount I will spend the most
thats happened
his ideas were great but they just had no dept
and each time I hear him I think of when I was a kid and the dummy and the guy always made me think he dummy was talking.
I want to see the arm up his back and i want to see then guy doing the movements
I don't think he has agender thats bad
I think he has no agender
 
Gough Whitlam was regarded by the end of his term as a disaster.

Personally I got a lot of benefit.

Two months before I became eligible for conscription Whitlam pulled out of Vietnam. That was a very bold and controversial step at the time but one which, in hindsight, was probably the right decision.

Then just as I was entering university (which was paid but with the support of scholarships) university became free. Not even HECS.

And in other decisions of the time Australia opene its door to people from many other countries. Al Grassby may have done many things wrong but his multiculturalism made Australia a better place.

History doesn't give Gough a great pat on the back. But he certainly did some good things.
 
Given the votes so far, why is the result of the next election so predictable??

Ahh...that's right...I can't even remember who's on the other side...
 
hi all
been thru hawke and the others
hawke and keating were bad but they were working on what was there at the time
and both did have there views like it or hate it thats their views and they did have the back bone to stand by those views
now I don't like those views but i do like that you stand behind your views
both keating and more hawke ( thou I am not one of his best fans) did do this
hawke did things we all did not like but he was voted in to do that
I did not like it most of my group did not like it but he was voted it to do it and he did
so do I not like hawke \
no
why he did what he said he was going to do
this is very different to saying I will do this and do that.
for me and I maybe wrong here but don't put hawke,keating,or whitlam into the same group
these are group that said we are going to do this
if you agree thats fine if you don't thats ok
majority wins
now they all had there problems but thats our system
you want to understand our system more then this post
from all my time on This rock i have not seen a polly designed to get votes
this has changed from a polly looking at doing some thing as a polly looking for votes
and they are very different
if I said I will promise you 50 virgins and a 50 litre of beer plus for the girls 50 times your dream just vote for me
would you
no put If i said I will give your school all new computers
the school a new bus
each the canteen all new food and all fresh
and a fee coffee from a new coffee machine in every school
but you have to vote for me
would you
and if I said
the coffee machine is off as we need to use that for heart or breast cancer (do you mind)(no but it does not go to the school or breast cancer)
cant do the computers as we need to use that for the indiginus groups so the schools there stay cool) thats fine but they money does not go there either so 0 cost.
oh lets get back to the 50 virgins
thats fine
we with set up a group to go to the streets of emel syd abd bris to take people of the buses and make sure they are a virgin and then make sure they don't get into trouble
well we went to the bus station and there was no one that met the requirement so no programme
hay the 50 virgins still looking( time frame on this programme was 20 mins any more is not paid as overtime)
 
Compared to NSW govt, just about anyone would be capable!! What a disaster!

i could not believe it (actually i could, which is really sad) to hear tonight that the abandoned new train line in sydney costs around $500,000,000 in research, prelim studies, reports and contracts - for nothing! was never built!

what an absolute, total waste. just think what you could achieve with half a billion dollars of taxpayers money. maybe you could build 1-2 tuckshops.

OR A NEW HOSPITAL or SCHOOL or UPGRADE THE POWER SYSTEM A LITTLE or PUT IN SOME DECENT ROADS.
 
i could not believe it (actually i could, which is really sad) to hear tonight that the abandoned new train line in sydney costs around $500,000,000 in research, prelim studies, reports and contracts - for nothing! was never built!

what an absolute, total waste. just think what you could achieve with half a billion dollars of taxpayers money. maybe you could build 1-2 tuckshops.

OR A NEW HOSPITAL or SCHOOL or UPGRADE THE POWER SYSTEM A LITTLE or PUT IN SOME DECENT ROADS.

or start the north-west rail link!!!!!

Pen
 
back on track ... i wasn't around for the first half of the pollies but gross has got is so right. at least most of those before rudd said what they were going to do and if they got in "they did it".

rudd has reneg or stuffed up on practically every promise he has made - to the point that anyone with half an interest doesn't believe anything he says ... and they think tony abbott has a problem. at least tony can admit that he occasionally stretches the truth in the heat of the moment.

although i don't really want either of them as a leader. i don't know that gillard or joe would do any better.

bring back costello or turnbull.

oh - i voted for paul keating because i couldn't stand him as a person. as more stuck up slimey rat one would never meet.
 
i think whitlam, by a whisker
fraser and even hawke and keating would not have so many issues if gough had not sold the farm, all the 'good'(not my choice description) he did was unfunded, (flush gurgle gurgle)

of course KRudd isnt finished yet, there is a good chance that he could be the worst ever

Labor policies(?) always the same,
look how hard the conservatives made you work

its time for a change​
catch a new mob of suckers every time
bunch of 18yr olds who know money comes from mum n dad,
so if a politician promises to give you stuff,
well it must be true, don't have to worry who is going to pay for it

unfortunately the change is always the same one, voluntarily down the crapper
 
Big problem!!! It doesn't include Menzies.

If you understood Menzies and the state he left the nation, Gough is easier to forgive. I thought "It's Time" and voted accordingly (my first ever vote I voted for Don "Queen Adelaide" Dunstan to topple Sir Thomas Playford) and Jim Cairns, Juni Marosi, Kemlani and Co left a bitter taste in my mouth. But these things were an embarrassment for the party and made us cringe but there was no legacy left enacted in law. He did bring about medibank and a culture of change though and subsequent floating of the dollar, deregulation of banking, dismantling of trade barriers and many things we take for granted today would never have happened under the Lib's paternalism and protectionism that prevailed before.

But in the spirit of the poll our incumbent PM is a dangerous socialist. Our worst by a country mile.
 
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