Historical rankings of prime ministers of Australia

John Curtin and his immediate successor Ben Chifley are both often ranked as two of the greatest Australian prime ministers due to their leadership during World War II and its immediate aftermath.

Several surveys of academics and the general public have been conducted to evaluate and rank the performance of the prime ministers of Australia.

According to Paul Strangio of Monash University, there has been little academic interest in ranking Australian prime ministers, unlike the numerous surveys conducted on American presidents and British prime ministers. The few surveys that have been conducted have been quite unscientific, with respondents chosen at random and no efforts made to measure personal biases. Strangio notes that "the dominant methodology for studying the nation's leaders has been individual-centered biographies [...] the relatively small number of collective anthologies have treated each prime minister discretely rather than undertaking comparative analysis of their leadership performance, let alone contemplating qualities of greatness in the office".^[4]