 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Premiers and chief ministers of the Australian states and territories" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| This article is part ofa series on the |
| Politics of Australia |
|---|
 |
| Constitution |
 Australia portal |
Thepremiers and chief ministers of the Australian states and territories are theheads of the executive governments in the six states and two self-governing territories of Australia. They perform the same function at the state and territory level as thePrime Minister of Australia performs at the national level. TheKing of Australia and thestate governors are the formal repositories of executive power; however, in practice they act only on the advice of state premiers and ministers except in extreme circumstances, such as a constitutional crisis.
Each of the Australian states is governed under theWestminster system of parliamentary government. Each state has an elected legislature. Following a general election, the state governor appoints as premier the member of the lower house of the state legislature who can command a simple majority of votes on the floor of the house. The governor is the head of state, and acts only on the advice of the head of government - the premier. The premier must resign the commission to the governor for losing the confidence of the legislative assembly, either because their party is defeated at a general election or losing a vote of confidence in the house. (Premiers may also resign for other reasons, such as losing the confidence of their own party).
The Australian states were founded as British colonies, and executive power was held by a governor (or sometimes a lieutenant-governor) appointed by the British government (seeGovernors of the Australian states). From the 1820s the power of the governors was gradually transferred to legislative bodies, at first appointed, later partly elected, and finally fully elected.Victoria gained full responsible parliamentary government in 1855,New South Wales,South Australia andTasmania in 1856,Queensland in 1859 andWestern Australia (owing to its much smaller population) in 1890.
Until the rise of theAustralian Labor Party in the 1890s, the Australian colonies did not have formal party systems, although many colonial politicians called themselves Liberals or Conservatives. Ministries were usually formed on the basis of personal or factional loyalties, and rose and fell with great frequency as loyalties changed. Colonial politics were commonly regarded as parochial, corrupt and cynical, and in many cases they were. Victorian PremierJames Munro, for example, fled the colony to escape his creditors in 1890, and Queensland PremierSir Thomas McIlwraith was notoriously corrupt.
The rise of Labor forced the colonies to move towards a two-party system of Labor versus non-Labor, although state politics remained more personalised and less ideological than national politics for many years. The first minority Labor government was formed byAnderson Dawson in Queensland in 1899, and the first majority Labor government was led byJames McGowen in New South Wales in 1910. Since about 1910 state politics have followed much the same party pattern as Australian national politics (seePolitics of Australia).
Since 1952, every premier of every state has been a member of theAustralian Labor Party, theLiberal Party of Australia, or theNational Party of Australia (until 1973, the Liberal Party was known as theLiberal and Country League inSouth Australia; theCountry Liberal Party is the Northern Territory branch of the Liberal and National Parties; and theLiberal National Party has been the Queensland branch of the same two parties since 2008).
Although the legislative powers of the states are defined in theConstitution, the real power of the Australian premiers has been declining steadily ever since Federation in 1901, as the power and responsibility of the national government has expanded at the expense of the states. The most important transfer of power came in 1943, when in the interests of national unity duringWorld War II the states gave up their power to levy their own income taxes to the Commonwealth. Since then the states' finances have essentially been controlled by the Commonwealth.
.jpg)
For many decades, the premiers met with each other and the prime minister at Premiers' Conferences. From 1992 to 2020, such meetings occurred through theCouncil of Australian Governments (COAG), which also includes the chief ministers of the territories and a representative of local government. Since 2020, theNational Cabinet allows meetings between the prime minister, state premiers and chief ministers of the territories, however local government representation has been removed.
On 21 July 2006,South Australian premier Mike Rann was appointed chairman of a newCouncil for the Australian Federation, a council which aims to improve state-federal ties.[1]
Between 6 March 2002 (whenMike Rann (Labor) succeededRob Kerin (Liberal) asPremier of South Australia) and 23 September 2008, whenColin Barnett succeededAlan Carpenter asPremier of Western Australia, there were Labor Premiers in all six of the Australian states (and Chief Ministers in both territories); this was only the second time a party or coalition has ever achieved this. A comparable feat was achieved by the Coalition between 26 May 1969 (when the Liberals'Angus Bethune succeeded Labor'sEric Reece as Premier of Tasmania) and 2 June 1970 (when the Liberals'Steele Hall was succeeded by Labor'sDon Dunstan as Premier of South Australia).
 |
.svg)
Map showing the states of Australia and their governing political parties:
| State | Portrait | Name | Term start | Current duration | Party | Title | State government | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | .png) | Chris Minns | 28 March 2023 (2023-03-28) | 2 years, 242 days | Labor | Premier | New South Wales Government | |
.svg) | .jpg) | Jacinta Allan[2] | 27 September 2023 | 2 years, 59 days | Labor | Premier | Allan government | |
 |  | David Crisafulli[3] | 28 October 2024 (2024-10-28) | 1 year, 28 days | Liberal National | Premier | Premiership of David Crisafulli | |
 |  | Roger Cook | 8 June 2023 (2023-06-08) | 2 years, 170 days | Labor | Premier | Western Australia Government | |
 | .png) | Peter Malinauskas[4] | 21 March 2022 (2022-03-21) | 3 years, 249 days | Labor | Premier | South Australia Government | |
 |  | Jeremy Rockliff[5] | 8 April 2022 (2022-04-08) | 3 years, 231 days | Liberal | Premier | Premiership of Jeremy Rockliff | |
| Territory | Portrait | Name | Term start | Current duration | Party | Title | Territory government | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) | Andrew Barr[6] | 11 December 2014 (2014-12-11) | 10 years, 349 days | Labor | Chief Minister | Australian Capital Territory Government | ||
 |  | Lia Finocchiaro | 28 August 2024 (2024-08-28) | 1 year, 89 days | Country Liberal | Chief Minister | Chief ministership of Lia Finocchiaro | |
With the exception ofSouth Australia, every state and territory of Australia has had a female head of government, all but three of whom have represented theAustralian Labor Party. They are:
Of the state leaders, all but Palaszczuk succeeded male premiers of their own party who had resigned mid-term; in three cases (Lawrence, Kirner and Keneally), their predecessors' resignations occurred after losing the support of their parliamentary colleagues; in Allan's case, her predecessor,Daniel Andrews, resigned only ten months after beingre-elected in November 2022.[7] The governments led by Lawrence, Kirner, Keneally and Giddings were defeated at the subsequent elections.
Anna Bligh, Annastacia Palaszczuk and Gladys Berejiklian are the only women who have received a popular mandate[clarification needed] as premier of an Australian state (21 March 2009, 31 January 2015 and 23 March 2019). Palaszczuk is also the only woman to have led a party from Opposition to Government.
Women have also been elected to the almost-equivalent posts of chief ministers of theAustralian Capital Territory (ACT) and theNorthern Territory (NT).Rosemary Follett (Labor) was elected as the inaugural Chief Minister of the ACT in 1989, nine months before any woman became premier of a state.Kate Carnell (Liberal), andClare Martin (Labor) also received popular mandates as chief ministers of the ACT and the NT respectively. Clare Martin was the only one of these three women to lead a majority government.
Of all female premiers and chief ministers, only Clare Martin and Annastacia Palaszczuk have gained re-election after successfully completing a term from election to election. Rosemary Follett did win two consecutive elections, but had an interrupted term of service from 5 December 1989 (when a successful motion of no confidence passed by establishing a new government led byTrevor Kaine) to 6 June 1991 (when another motion of no confidence was passed, this time against Trevor Kaine, re-establishing Follett as chief minister).
