Labor Party and Opposition Leader
In November 2001, following Labor's third consecutive election defeat, he was elected unopposed as the Leader of the Labor Party and the opposition following the resignation of Kim Beazley.
On 4 February 2003, Crean led the Labor Party in condemning Prime Minister John Howard's decision to commit Australian troops to the Iraq War.
Through most of 2003, consistently poor polling led to constant speculation of a leadership challenge by Beazley, though a reasonably successful Budget reply speech and the controversy over Peter Hollingworth gave Crean a small boost in popularity. Nevertheless, to end the constant rumblings over a challenge, Crean called for a leadership spill. Polls continued to suggest that the public much preferred Beazley to Crean; nevertheless, when the vote was taken on 16 June 2003, Crean won by 58 votes to 34.
By November, however, polls continued to show Crean losing more ground to Howard as preferred Prime Minister. On 27 November 2003 a group of his senior colleagues told Crean that he had lost the party's support and should resign. Crean said he would "sleep on it". On 28 November 2003, Crean announced that he would resign as Leader of the Labor Party, becoming the first federal Labor leader to be replaced without having contested an election since the expulsion of Billy Hughes in 1916.
Read more about this topic: Simon Crean
Famous quotes containing the words labor, party, opposition and/or leader:
“Foster the labor of our country by an undeviating metallic currency ... always recollecting that if labor is depressed neither commerce nor manufactures can flourish, as they are both based upon the production of labor, produced from the earth, or the mineral world.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion, the other, private opinion; one, fame, the other, desert; one, feats, the other, humility; one, lucre, the other, love; one, monopoly, and the other, hospitality of mind.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I don’t think that a leader can control to any great extent his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)