Paul Keating - Defeat

Defeat

John Hewson was replaced as Liberal party leader by Alexander Downer after being defeated at a leadership spill in May 1994. However Downer's well received tenure was marred by gaffes and controversies by the end of 1994, and he resigned as leader in January 1995. He was succeeded by John Howard, who had previously led the party from 1985 to 1989. Under Howard, the Coalition moved ahead of Labor in opinion polls and Keating was unable to wrest back the lead. The first warning sign of a swing away from Labor came in March 1995, when Labor lost Canberra in a by-election. Later in 1995, Queensland Labor barely held onto its majority at the 1995 state election before losing it altogether in a 1996 by-election held a week after Keating called a federal election for March. Later, defeated Queensland Premier Wayne Goss said that the people of his state had turned so violently on Keating that they were "sitting on their verandas with baseball bats" waiting for the writs to drop.

Howard, determined to avoid a repetition of the 1993 election, adopted a "small target" strategy – committing to keep Labor reforms such as Medicare, and defusing the republic issue by promising to hold a constitutional convention. This allowed Howard to focus the election on the economy and memory of the early 1990s recession, and on the longevity of the Labor government, which in 1996 had been in power for 13 years.

Keating was criticised for stifling public debate in Australia on sensitive issues. Many believe this resulted in Pauline Hanson's rise to power at the 1996 election.

At the 1996 election, the Keating Government was swept from power in a landslide, losing 29 seats and suffering a five percent two party preferred swing—in terms of seats lost, the second-worst defeat of a sitting government at the federal level in Australia. Keating immediately resigned as Labor Party leader, and resigned from Parliament a little over a month later, on 23 April 1996.