1976 Australian Labor Party leadership spill

1976 Australian Labor Party
Leadership spill

← 1968 27 January 1976 May 1977 →

Candidate Gough Whitlam Lionel Bowen Frank Crean Caucus vote 36 (57.1%) 14 (22.2%) 13 (20.6%)

Leader before election Gough Whitlam Elected Leader Gough Whitlam

A leadership spill in the Australian Labor Party, the party of opposition in the Parliament of Australia, was held on 27 January 1976, the date of the first Caucus meeting following the 1975 election.

Dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was comfortably re-elected leader of the ALP ahead of senior MPs Lionel Bowen and Frank Crean on the first ballot. A much more extensive series of ballots was required to fill the deputy leadership with eight contenders narrowed down to a final ballot seeing Tom Uren narrowly defeat Paul Keating 33 votes to 30.^[1]

To date, this is the last Australian Labor Party leadership spill at the federal level to be contested by more than two candidates.