Prime ministerial leadership rankings: The Australian experience

Leadership ranking exercises, which have a storied history in the
United States, have recently gained a foothold in Westminster
democracies. In 2020, the author conducted a major survey of
Australian political scientists and historians to gauge their opinion
of the leadership performance of the nation’s past prime
ministers. Read in tandem with the results of earlier surveys,
particularly that conducted out of Monash University in 2010, the
2020 rankings indicate that expert opinion about who have been
Australia’s most successful prime ministers is largely settled. The
2020 results also suggest that the experts believe that the policy
legacy of a leader is a more important indicator of primeministerial success than is the longevity of office.