Australia has acquired a reputation for rapidly changing prime ministers: five times in the past nine years. Yet it could soon have another if Bill Shorten’s Labor Party wins an election on 18 May.

Mr Shorten, 51, is hoping his centre-left party can unseat Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative government.

Widely viewed as an archetypal Labor politician, Mr Shorten was a key player in brutal party coups that unseated prime ministers Kevin Rudd in 2010 and Julia Gillard in 2013.

However, he’s since been credited with uniting Labor after that tumultuous period. He will contest this election in his sixth year as opposition leader.