Mixed success of recent leadership changes

DOES LEADERSHIP CHANGE EVER WORK OUT FOR A GOVERNMENT?

* FEDERAL

Federal Labor is synonymous with leadership instability in recent times. Chopping and changing leaders undermined what was predicted to be a long-term government after Labor returned to government in 2007. Julia Gillard "won" the 2010 election after toppling Kevin Rudd, but only just. What should have been a comfortable victory ended in minority government, with Gillard relying on independents to maintain power.

Between 2010 and mid-2013 Gillard was undermined by constant leadership chatter and two failed Rudd challenges. Eventually, Rudd returned but a few weeks later lost the 2013 election to Tony Abbott, even though he was credited with "saving the furniture" for Labor.

* NSW

Labor gave the state three premiers in the six years following the retirement of the long-serving Bob Carr. While Morris Iemma initially succeeded, winning the 2007 election, a fight over electricity privatisation led to his demise in 2008. His replacement Nathan Rees lasted just over a year before he too was passed over for Kristina Keneally. In 2011 she led the party to a landslide defeat.

Liberal premier Barry O'Farrell spectacularly resigned in 2013 after misleading ICAC over a $3000 bottle of wine. Mike Baird has been a popular replacement, according to opinion polls, but faces an election in late March.

* VICTORIA

Ted Baillieu's decision to quit as premier in 2013 plunged the Victorian Liberals into chaos. The first-term premier stood down after losing the support of his party room, but his replacement Denis Napthine lurched from crisis to crisis. Many had predicted the Liberals would be in power for at least two terms. However the circus surrounding party deserter Geoff Shaw only undermined Napthine's authority.

The Liberals became Victoria's first one-term-only government in nearly 60 years when Daniel Andrews led Labor to victory in late 2014.

* QUEENSLAND

In 2007 Labor's Peter Beattie stepped down after almost 10 years as premier, handing the job to his groomed successor Anna Bligh. Bligh went on to win the 2009 election, making her Australia's first popularly-elected female premier. Labor suffered an eight-per-cent swing in the poll and its support continued to decline during her second term.

Not even Bligh's sure handling of the Queensland floods could stave off defeat, and she lost the 2012 election to Campbell Newman in a historic landslide that gave the Liberal-National Party a record majority. In January 2015 the LNP was swept from office and Newman lost his seat.

* NORTHERN TERRITORY

The Country-Liberal Party now has its third leader in two years. The party won 56 per cent of the two-party preferred vote at the 2012 election, but voter support for the government has been on the slide since. Adam Giles ousted Terry Mills while the chief minister was overseas in 2013, and now the party has dumped Giles in a late-night spill.

His replacement Willem Westra van Holthe said the disastrous election result for the LNP government in Queensland had sparked the coup.