In a 30-minute conversation alongside former Liberal prime minister John Howard with the ABC's Annabel Crabb at Old Parliament House in Canberra, Mr Hawke said the world had never needed an outstanding leader more than it did at this time.

"Let's remember that nowhere in the world's democracies today is there an outstanding world leader, This is the first time since the end of the Second World War so we're not talking some peculiarly Australian factors, this is a more global thing," Mr Hawke told the audience in Canberra.

"This is at a time when we have never, ever needed more outstanding leaders," he said.

Mr Hawke said while there was no single factor behind the malaise, the media was partially to blame.

"One of the factors in the absence of more outstanding people that we have been used is the increasing intrusiveness of the media in the private lives of politicians and their families," he said.

"How do you rate this, how a big a factor it is? I'm not sure but I am certain it's a factor here and around the world," he said.

But Mr Howard said the composition of the major political parties and the over-representation of career politicians versus political outsiders was also to blame for the decline in the standard for politics.

"One of the besetting problems in Australia now is that both of the major parties are far less representative of the generality of people who might vote for them," he said.

Mr Howard said former union officials were over-represented in the Labor party, despite private sector union membership plummeting to a record-low of 9.3 per cent this year.

But he did not spare his own side from criticism, saying his own party's rank-and-file membership does not reflect mainstream voters.

"You've got my party which in my opinion is nowhere near as representative, in its membership - I'm talking about its rank and file membership - of the generality of people who vote."

Mr Howard said identity politics and career politicians who went from straight from school to university to a politician's office or via a union if in Labor, were ruining the profession.

"We have too many people who enter parliament now who have no experience in life other than politics," he said.

"We've got too many now," he said, noting that the Chifley Cabinet had a publican, serviceman, tobacconist and a farmer amongst its ranks, while the last Labor government had not one farmer.

Mr Hawke agreed.

"I just detest the seeing a young bloke or lady go into a trade union office or a politician's office organising their time in the branches, that's not the way in this world, that's not how you prepare people to represent you," he said.

"My advice consistently to every young person who comes and asks me about this is make a life first," Mr Hawke said.

Labor's leader Bill Shorten is a former union boss while Malcolm Turnbull is a former journalist, lawyer and businessman.

High turnover of PMs not new

But Mr Howard cautioned against over-emphasising the significance of the change in prime ministers since he was voted out of government and his own seat in 2007, saying Australia had seen this rate of change before.

"We shouldn't get too carried away," Mr Howard said, pointing to the period between 1966 and 1975 when Australia had five prime ministers in less than decade.

"Now it is unusual to remove prime ministers in their first term and it's happened on both sides and I can understand the turbulence that appears to represent, but I think we should take a slightly more historic view," he said.

Mr Howard also said the rise in populism was nothing new describing the trend as the modern name for "people who unhappy with their economic circumstances."

He said the major parties faced greater challenges to keep their "detachable flanks" on the left of the Labor party and the right of the Liberal party together.

In 2010, the Greens won the lower house seat of Melbourne from Labor and have held it ever since. Earlier this year, South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi defected from the party to form a new Australian Conservatives movement, directly challenging One Nation for the populist right vote.

Mr Howard conceded the fracturing of politics was making governing more difficult. "We've got to make sure we don't lose them," he said.

"This is a challenge for my party, to my party, to make sure it retains that broad church of conservative and liberals," he said.

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