The town of Maryborough, 250km north of Brisbane, is a far cry from the Canberra halls of power where national policy is determined. Among its population of 21,000 is the Nationals leader, Warren Truss, who is the acting prime minister this week while Tony Abbott takes a break.
Maryborough is just the latest in a long line of varied places that have, briefly, become the seat of decision-making.
Truss’s predecessor Anthony Albanese was acting prime minister only once in the few months that Kevin Rudd served his second stint as Labor leader before the 2013 federal election.
Albanese quipped that a “sleepover at Kirribilli” during his son’s school holidays might be easier than trying to have the Australian federal police secure his suburban home in Marrickville, Sydney.
In 2008, the then acting prime minister Julia Gillard ran the country from her modest brick home in the western Melbourne suburb of Altona while Rudd took a summer holiday.
During the Howard government, acting prime ministers (usually the National party leader) could often be found running the county from their farms or rural properties.
John Anderson, who was the deputy prime minister and leader of the Nationals from 1999 until his retirement in 2005, needed the assistance of a satellite phone to communicate from his property near Gunnedah in north-western New South Wales. Critics pointed out the irony of Anderson not having mobile coverage in his rural electorate, while simultaneously holding the regional services portfolio.
Anderson’s predecessor Tim Fischer put his home town of Boree Creek in NSW’s Riverina district on the map when the unassuming town of just one shop and one pub became the nation’s seat of power. He was acting prime minister 16 times.
Doug Anthony was deputy prime minister for three Coalition leaders: John Gorton, Billy McMahon and Malcolm Fraser. He was acting prime minister 25 times, and his summer stints as leader were often spent in a caravan park in New Brighton on the NSW north coast.
