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The Labor Party has had no fewer than eight leadership contests in the last 12 years (albeit not all of them were contested) and from 2007-2009 the Liberal Party had four different leaders. One of the main reasons for this are the opinion polls - politically they have more influence in Australia than almost anywhere else, and if a leader has poor personal ratings and/or his party are trailing badly in the voting intentions, then he/she will be fairly likely to face a challenge.

Occasionally the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats in Britain show signs of adopting this method, but the Labour Party is historically loyal to its leaders. What if all three parties took the same attitude to their leaders as the two main Australian parties?
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