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:
“Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“Commitment, by its nature, frees us from ourselves and, while it stands us in opposition to some, it joins us with others similarly committed. Commitment moves us from the mirror trap of the self absorbed with the self to the freedom of a community of shared values.”
—Michael Lewis (late 20th century)
“The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass. Armenian refugees, Jewish refugees, refugees from Franco Spain. But a political leader or artistic figure is an exile. Thomas Mann yesterday, Theodorakis today. Exile is the noble and dignified term, while a refugee is more hapless.... What is implied in these nuances of social standing is the respect we pay to choice. The exile appears to have made a decision, while the refugee is the very image of helplessness.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)