Favourite ALP PM of Australia?

In no particular order:

John Curtin: A truly profound war leader who laid the seeds of Australia being an independent nation with its own foreign policy after the British abondened their defense pledges and Curtin began a relationship with the US.

Ben Chifley: A man of profound vision for his party and the first Labor PM to achieve social reforms which directly helped to shape Australia in the modern day. His 1946 amendment to the Constitution have made all future Labor reforms possible.

Tough Whitlam: Beyond anything else, a larger than life figure whose sheer personality alone earns him a place high in the annals of history. Of course, the actual reforms of the Whitlam era were deeply profound with regards to social and foreign policy, quite literally forging a new identity for Australia. His economic policies, or lack thereof, were not sufficient for the time, but you could say that for most Western democracies in the mid 70s.

Bob Hawke: Labor's most successful leader ever and someone who firmly planted in the minds of the electorate that the party could be a natural party of government and not simply an alternative when conservative governments grew out of touch. While Keating was a driving force publicly through economic reforms, Hawke's personal creativity with regard to business and industrial relations brushed aside a previously intractable debate on class warfare to a transformative accord for social security and economic growth.

Paul Keating: Again, first and foremost, a petsonality without equal in his day and a man of brave conviction and daring. Keating grew into his role as Treasurer over his term, eventually becoming a master of both economic and political argument in the Parliament. His actions against the recession were too slow and cautious, but his groundbreaking Redfern Speech, implementation of Mabo, and profound belief in Australia belonging in the Asian economy are policies Labor should learn from today.

Julia Gillard: Upon reflection, her decision to challenge Rudd in the manner in which she did was a mistake and poisoned her term before it could even begin. As she would never explain the reasons for her challenge adequately enough, she could never, over three years, escape the basic question of why she was there to begin with. However, her ability to negotiate a working majority after the first hung parliament since the War and sheppard through monumental reforms while constantly battling leadership tensions and scandal ridden MPs is astounding. However, even with the publication of "Australia in the Asian Century," her government failed to really propel Australia into a new foreign policy direction and outlook on the base which Keating has built, and Russ's rhetoric had come to imply.

Note on Kevin Rudd, I was limited by the number of choices, but Rudd obviously does deserve praise for being the most successful leader of the ALP since Hawke by putting an end to eleven years of John Howard. Whereas, unlike Gillard, he was a brilliant campaigner, he could manage the position of PM and constantly blamed others in his caucus and Cabinet for faults. As I said above, Gillard's election always seemed illegitimate to many, partially because Rudd pulled out of the humiliation of being blown away in a contested vote in June 2010. If he had done so, and the numbers proved just how monunentally unpopular he had become, Gillard's ascent would have been cast in a different light.

Rudd and Gillard always existed as a pair, and ever history of one must include the other. It's a twist of fate that a dream team who came into power by toppling Beazley in 2006 would destroy each other while in power.

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