MARKING OUR LEADERS 

By Malcolm Mackerras, table for this article in The Weekend Australian.

Ranking Australia's 26 Prime Ministers

The top half

Great

1 Robert Menzies (1939-41 and 1949-66)

2 John Curtin (1941-45)

3 Alfred Deakin (1903-04, 1905-08 and 1909-10)

4 Andrew Fisher (1908-09, 1910-13 and 1914-15)

High average

5 Robert Hawke (1983-91)

6 Joseph Lyons (1932-39)

7 Joseph Benedict Chifley (1945-49)

8 Stanley Melbourne Bruce (1923-29)

9 William Morris Hughes (1915-23)

10 John Howard (1996-2007)

11 Paul Keating (1991-96)

12 Malcolm Fraser (1975-83)

13 Gough Whitlam (1972-75)

The bottom half

Low average

14 Kevin Rudd (2007-)*

15 Edmund Barton (1901-03)

16 Harold Holt (1966-67)

17 John Gorton (1968-71)

18 John Christian Watson (1904)

19 Joseph Cook (1913-14)

20 George Reid (1904-05)

21 John McEwen (1967-68)

22 James Scullin (1929-32)

Failure

23 Arthur Fadden (1941)

24 William McMahon (1971-72)

25 Earle Page (1939)

26 Frank Forde (1945)