In my lifetime? Or in my voting lifetime?

If the former, Whitlam. He’s not a popular choice according to history, and he was blocked so frequently in what he was trying to do. But if you look at the actual policies he killed conscription, introduced free health care, free university, legal aid, equal rights and animal rights. Lots of these policies were unpopular with politicians at the time, but are a given in society today. He’s mostly remembered for “The Dismissal”, which is a crying shame.

If the latter, it’s a little nuanced. PMs have been more stymied by their parties in the past 20 years than I remember happening in before the Hawke-Howard years.

Rudd’s an interesting one: By all accounts, he’s a raging arsehole to work with. But, he was really trying to spread the wealth and break up the monopolies. He was just getting going when the mining companies fired him for having the audacity to suggest that was all our dirt they were digging up and the profits should be shared with all Australians. I’m still mad that his party didn’t stand with him on that one.

I think Turnbull could have been one of the greatest PMs of all time. A total technocrat who wanted to put experts in their fields into assorted roles. That was unpopular in his party and he spent his whole prime-ministership trying to manage his party instead of the nation. He also stood by his word - if he agreed that he’d support a bill if conditions were met - he did so. Even crossing the floor to support climate legislation. I’d love to see what he could have achieved if he had his party behind him.

Gillard is another one who would have been great, but she spent her whole tenure with a cloud over her head - either from the way she wrested leadership from her predecessor, alienating the electorate, or from being in a minority government most of the time, needing to do deals for everything. For all that though, wow she got shit done!

In terms of popular/least hated prime minister in my voting life, I have to give it to Hawke. He cared. You really felt like the guy was in your living room talking to you over a beer and working on your behalf. I know and acknowledge that my childhood politics was shaped a lot by my parents, and those days were very much “Labor good, Libs evil”. But for all of that, Australians really felt like the guy was there batting for us. He wasn’t all roses: He took away free university but he re-introduced free health care (Menzies privatised Medibank after Whitlam). He was deeply in the USA camp, which is weird as he was a polar opposite to Regan. He cried on TV, showing that he was human.

I really want to see how Gillard, Rudd and Turnbull went in their respective alternative universes where they had their parties were behind them. I think they all could have done great things.