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this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2026
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Someone getting ~~elected~~ nominated prime minister by their party in the runup to elections in Australia tells a lot more about the general populace there than it does in the US, because we've got first-past-the-post elections and you lot have ranked choice.
Edit: And there's a fine for not voting in Australia; this is not true the US.
Edit edit: there, now it's completely accurate as opposed to just accurate in spirit. Thanks for keeping me accountable, internet!
Riiiight, technically the party picks the leader. Of course they pick the leader in the runup to the elections, don't they? And people vote based on that, don't they, which is why it's such a problem when leaders get ousted mid-term, like with Rudd and Gillard, right? And why Murdoch plastered Abbott's face on the cover of his rag as Australia's saviour, isn't it, to get people to vote for his party who were running him as their pick for PM?
Or are you still kidding yourself that Australians don't vote for the PM? The same way you're kidding yourself that American citizens votes actually count for anything while the electoral college exists?
No, I think it is a technicality.
The party leader from the party forming government needs a mandate from the electorate.
As in, when you cast a vote to elect the party to choose a leader and form government, it's reasonable and expected for that party to tell you what their proposed government would look like and who their leader would be.
Imagine if Labor won an election with Albo as leader during the campaign but then he stepped aside a few weeks later and the party made Wong the new PM. That's not the structure that the electorate voted for, and although "technically" permissible the vast majority of the voting public would rightly feel that it's not the government they voted for.
There are of course exceptions - hypothetically suppose there were a sudden unexpected invasion from one of our neighbours in SEA, a party might elect a "war time" leader to be PM. Given the dire circumstances, there might be bi-partisan support for the move, and the public might support it.
Generally though when a party elects a new leader as PM they'll move to election as quickly as possible in an effort to receive that mandate from the public.