Freedom of expression during each prime minister's tenure

Every prime minister since 1991, ranked by how the freedom of expression changed from their first day in office. Politare shows what happened during a tenure; it does not claim the office-holder caused it.

#	Prime minister	In office	Total	Per year	Chart
1	Anthony Albanese	23 May 2022 – now	+1.7 points 2021 → 2025	+0.4 points/yr
2	John Howard	11 Mar 1996 – 3 Dec 2007	+0.3 points 1995 → 2007	0.0 points/yr
3	Paul Keating	20 Dec 1991 – 11 Mar 1996	0.0 points 1991 → 1995	0.0 points/yr
4	Julia Gillard	24 Jun 2010 – 27 Jun 2013	−0.3 points 2009 → 2012	−0.1 points/yr
5	Malcolm Turnbull	15 Sep 2015 – 24 Aug 2018	−2.7 points 2015 → 2018	−0.9 points/yr
6	Scott Morrison	24 Aug 2018 – 23 May 2022	−2.7 points 2018 → 2021	−0.9 points/yr

Sorted by total, highest first. Every row is indexed to the last count complete before the first day in office ("from" marks a start that had to move because that count had no data, or because the period cut it); Levels are per cent changes, rates are differences in points; "per year" compounds levels and divides rates. Tenures with under 12 months, or under three observations, are left out. points, 0 to 100, V-Dem's 0 to 1 index times 100 · V-Dem Institute, V-Dem dataset v16 (v2x_freexp_altinf): the freedom of expression and alternative sources of information index, the press, academic and private speech and the media's independence, as V-Dem's country experts rate them, with V-Dem's confidence interval; the 0 to 1 index times 100 · Australia data · as of Sep 2026.