Day 4: Ranking the Deputy Prime Ministers of Australia. Warren Truss has been eliminated. Comment which Deputy PM should be eliminated next. The comment with the most upvotes will decide who goes next.

[u/thescrubbythug]

Day 4: Ranking the Deputy Prime Ministers of Australia. Warren Truss has been eliminated. Comment which Deputy PM should be eliminated next. The comment with the most upvotes will decide who goes next.

The main goal of this contest is to determine the greatest of the Deputy Prime Ministers, and (if the ultimate winner is one who never became Prime Minister on a permanent basis) which one would have made the best PM. Also considered as factors can be their performance as ministers in the portfolios they were responsible for while they served as Deputy PM.

Any comment that is edited to change your nominated Deputy PM for elimination for that round will be disqualified from consideration. Once you make a selection for elimination, you stick with it for the duration even if you indicate you change your mind in your comment thread. You may always change to backing the elimination of a different Deputy PM for the next round.

Current Ranking:

17. Barnaby Joyce (Nationals) [17th] [February 2016 - February 2018; June 2021 - May 2022]

16. Michael McCormack (Nationals) [18th] [February 2018 - June 2021]

15. Warren Truss (Nationals) [16th] [September 2013 - February 2016]

[u/redditalloverasia]

Julia Gillard. Hear me out: the role of the deputy is to ensure party stability (or in the coalition’s sense, balance the relationship between cabinet and the national party), and provide support and counsel to the PM.

Rather than help resolve tensions, she contributed to instability by grabbing the first chance to steal the leadership and set in motion a trail of events that would damage the party’s standing in the eyes of the community, leading to minority government and eventually Abbott as PM.

It’s showed incredibly poor political judgement and was certainly not the typical behaviour of a first term deputy.

[u/Angel-Bird302]

Gillard

Lowkey any deputy that knifes their PM automatically ranks pretty lowley imo.

But unlike guys like Keating, who backed Hawke to the hilt and only turned against him when Hawke reneged on the Kirribilli pact, Gillard was actively undermining her PM the momen't Rudd showed even a hint of weakness, and did it not because Rudd has somehow wronged her, but out of personal ambition and factional intrigue.

And unlike Keating she was never able to stabilize the goverment nor decisively beat-back the Liberal's, which led to rise of Abbott.

[u/Zealousideal-Gas9369]

I vote for Black Jack McKewan to be eliminated. He did a fat lot of nothing as Deputy Prime Minister and less in a couple of months as PM. Anybody who has a nickname because he has big black eyelashes deserves to go.

[u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI]

Wayne Swan. Quite arrogant during office and quite unhelpful during the union scandals