Scott Brenton "Minority Government: Is the House of
Representatives Finally Catching Up With the Senate?*"  Papers
on Parliament No. 55 February 2011  Prev | Contents | Next  When
Kevin Rudd was replaced as prime minister, and in the post-
election commentary, it was embarrassingly clear how little we
as a country know about our political system. How dare those
faceless men knife the prime minister that we elected? Yet ‘we’
in the broadest sense do not ever elect the prime minister, and
at the 2007 election only 43 957 Australians voted directly for
Rudd in the electorate of Griffith. By contrast, at that same
election, 1 760 022 Australians voted for Senator Mark Arbib,
one the so-called ‘faceless’ men who led the Labor Senate ticket
in New South Wales. This myth of a popularly elected prime
minister, in a large part due to presidential-style election
campaigns, propagates another myth that we have a single chief
executive with a three-year tenure that can only be terminated
or extended by the people at an el