The deputy prime minister of Australia is the deputy chief executive and the second highest ranking officer of the Australian Government. The office of deputy prime minister was officially created as a ministerial portfolio in 1968, although the title had been used informally for many years previously. The deputy prime minister is appointed by the governor-general on the advice of the prime minister. When Australia has a Labor government, the deputy leader of the parliamentary party holds the position of deputy prime minister. When Australia has a Coalition government, the Coalition Agreement mandates that all Coalition members support the leader of the Liberal Party becoming prime minister and the leader of the National Party becoming the deputy prime minister.[1]
Prime Minister John McEwen with John Gorton on 9 January 1968. The following day, Gorton was sworn in as prime minister, and McEwen became the inaugural deputy prime minister.
Originally the position of deputy prime minister was an unofficial or honorary position accorded to the second-highest ranking minister in the government. The unofficial position acquired more significance following the 1922 federal election, which saw the governing Nationalist Party lose its parliamentary majority. The Nationalists eventually reached a coalition agreement with the Country Party, which called for Country Party leader Earle Page to take the second rank in the Nationalist-led ministry of Stanley Bruce. While Page's only official title was Treasurer, he was considered as a deputy to Bruce.[5]
Although no office of that name had officially been created, by 1946 the title "deputy prime minister" was being used in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette.[6]
From then until 1968, the Coalition agreement between the Liberals (and their predecessors) and Country Party called for the leader of the Country Party (subsequently the National Party) to rank second in Cabinet. That continues to be case when the Coalition is in government.[1] In the case of Labor governments, the party's deputy leader ranks second in Cabinet.
On 19 December 1967, John McEwen, the long-serving leader of the Country Party in the Coalition government, was sworn in as interim prime minister following the sudden disappearance and presumed death of Prime Minister Harold Holt. There was discussion that deputy Liberal leader and Treasurer William McMahon should assume the office. McMahon had planned a party room meeting on 20 December to elect a new leader, intending to stand for the position himself. However, this was pre-empted by McEwen who publicly declared on the morning of 18 December that he would not serve in a McMahon government. McEwen was sworn in as prime minister on the understanding that his commission would continue only so long as it took for the Liberals to elect a new leader. Governor-General Lord Casey also accepted the view put to him by McEwen that to commission a Liberal temporarily as prime minister would give that person an unfair advantage in the forthcoming party room ballot for the permanent leader. McEwen's appointment was in keeping with the previous occasion when the main non-Labor party was without a leader; Earle Page of the Country Party was interim prime minister between 7 and 26 April 1939—the period between Joseph Lyons' sudden death and the United Australia Party naming Robert Menzies his successor.
The Liberal leadership ballot was rescheduled for 9 January 1968. As it turned out, McMahon did not stand, and Senator John Gorton was elected, replacing McEwen as prime minister on 10 January 1968.[7] McEwen reverted to his previous status as the second-ranking member of the government, as per the Coalition agreement. He had unofficially been deputy prime minister since becoming Country Party leader in 1958, and since 1966 had exercised an effective veto over government policy by virtue of being the longest-serving member of the government; he had been a member of the Coalition frontbench without interruption since 1937. To acknowledge McEwen's long service and his status as the second-ranking member of the government, Gorton formally created the post of deputy prime minister, with McEwen as the first holder of the post.
According to parliamentary records, in the time before the position of deputy prime minister was officially created, the position was known as "deputy leader of the Government."[8]
Since 1968 only three deputy prime ministers have gone on to become prime minister, all of them are Labor Party's politicians: Paul Keating, Julia Gillard, and Anthony Albanese. Both Keating and Gillard succeeded incumbent prime ministers who lost the support of their party caucus mid-term. Meanwhile, Albanese who briefly served as deputy prime minister in 2013, later led the Labor party to victory at the 2022 Australian federal election, and was sworn-in as prime minister on 23 May 2022.[9]Frank Forde, who had been deputy Labor leader when John Curtin died, was interim prime minister between 6 and 13 July 1945, when a leadership ballot took place that elected Ben Chifley as Curtin's successor.
In November 2007, when the Labor Party won government, Julia Gillard became Australia's first female, and first foreign-born, deputy prime minister.
The deputy prime minister becomes acting prime minister if the prime minister is unable to undertake their role for a short time, for example if they are ill, overseas or on leave (and if both are unavailable, then another senior minister takes on this role).[13] If the prime minister were to die, then the deputy prime minister would be appointed prime minister by the governor-general, until the government votes for another member to be its leader.[13]
Salary
Members of parliament receive a base salary of $203,030, which is set by the Remuneration Tribunal (an independent statutory authority). Ministers receive an additional amount, which is determined by the government itself based on the recommendations of the Remuneration Tribunal.[14] The deputy prime minister receives an additional 105 percent of the base salary, making for a total salary of $416,212.[15] The holder of the office also receives various other allowances and entitlements.[14]
List of deputy prime ministers of Australia
The following individuals have been officially appointed as deputy prime minister of Australia since the office of deputy prime minister was created as a ministerial portfolio in 1968:[16][17]
As of 2 November 2024, there are 11 living former deputy prime ministers of Australia, the oldest being Brian Howe (born 1936). The most recent former deputy prime minister to die was Doug Anthony (1971–72, 1975–83), on 20 December 2020. The most recent serving former deputy prime minister to die was Tim Fischer (1996–99), on 22 August 2019.
^Barnaby Joyce, Deputy Prime Minister (14 August 2017). "Parliamentary Representation"(PDF). Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Commonwealth of Australia: House of Representatives. p. 8185. Retrieved 26 February 2018. Last Thursday afternoon the New Zealand High Commission contacted me to advise that, on the basis of preliminary advice from their Department of Internal Affairs, which had received inquiries from the New Zealand Labour Party, they considered that I may be a citizen by descent of New Zealand.
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