Four-Year Terms: An Outsider Perspective

Australia’s current Prime Minister has suggested that Commonwealth parliaments should go four years between elections, instead of the current three. 

Three-year term limits for federal MPs are too short, the prime minister says, but he admits changes to time spent in parliament are unlikely to happen soon.

Anthony Albanese said it was unfortunate an increase to four-year terms for federal parliament would not be coming through soon, despite states and territories having the longer limits in place.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12921257/Anthony-Albanese-calls-four-year-fixed-terms-federal-parliament-instead-three.html

Interestingly, he didn’t say why four-year terms would be better, other than noting that all the States have them, so they must be good.  Given the standards of governance exhibited by the States, that is not an argument that I myself would be advancing in order to persuade people.

A former, much better Prime Minister agrees, it seems.

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/the-one-thing-john-howard-says-could-get-four-year-terms-over-the-line-20240314-p5fcj6

Mind you, John Howard was “lukewarm” back in 2006, when the issue came up then.  Oh, and Peter Dutton likes the idea, too.  Of course!

https://www.afr.com/business-summit/dutton-supports-albanese-on-four-year-terms-20240312-p5fbpi#:~:text=Several%20times%20in%20recent%20months,three%20years%2C%E2%80%9D%20he%20said.

You might think that Airbus Albo might have been warned off referendums, but apparently not.  His experience with the voice has not cured him of the apparent desire to be remembered for something other than destroying the country, and to use a referendum to achieve it.

This is, very much a UniParty pitch. 

Those most likely to be in power naturally want more.  It isn’t enough that the macro freedom parties have next to no chance of accessing power, in vie of the electoral system.  It isn’t enough that the major parties seek to defenestrate anyone else at every turn, for example through toughening the process for registering parties.

Those of us who resent those in power should shout pretty loudly, “no way”.  Should do anything we can to stop this.

Business, naturally, agrees with four years. 

… new Business Council of Australia president Geoff Culbert said three-year terms were a key contributor to what he said was a crisis of short-term thinking that was inhibiting the capacity policy reform and dragging down the nation.

https://www.afr.com/business-summit/dutton-supports-albanese-on-four-year-terms-20240312-p5fbpi#:~:text=Several%20times%20in%20recent%20months,three%20years%2C%E2%80%9D%20he%20said.

They would agree with this.   Anything that makes crony capitalism easier is to be applauded, and they think this would.  A crisis of short-term thinking?  This is a distraction, a “look over there” view of our democratic problems, and the major, indeed catastrophic threats to our national well-being have nothing to do with short-term thinking.  Zip.  Does anyone think that any of the following would go away if only the bastards had one extra year each time to deceive us and screw us over?

·         Climate madness;

·         The digital ID regime and other forms of mass surveillance;

·         Big spending of our money, that they do not have;

·         Executive overreach;

·         Printing money;

·         Government by community grant;

·         Outsourcing of key government functions;

·         Public-private-partnerships gone rogue;

·         Kowtowing to supra-national bodies;

·         Actively censoring public opinion that disagrees with the government line;

·         Getting unelected bureaucrats – like public health officials – to make core decisions;

·         Breaking promises;

·         Doing things not ever remotely mandated, like mass immigration.

Not to mention the Covid dictatorship, with its military policing, border closures, enforced, lethal jabs and lockdowns.  And they all do it.  Ask Paul Fletcher if he likes digital ID.  It was his idea!

I would like to hear one argument, and by argument I do not mean unfounded assertion, that a four-year parliamentary term would help attack any of these problems.

Big business, of course, also loves local government amalgamations, mass immigration, women in the workforce, green washing and wokeism.  Yes, all of the above.  Meanwhile, they have forgotten customer service, and only think now about appeasing the progressive social media mob.  Why would we listen to them on ANY issue?  Especially one where they have a vested interest.

Four-year terms are a bit like getting rid of parliamentary oversight during the Covid plandemic.  They increase the capacity for control by the establishment, and place an already limp and powerless electorate just that little bit further from the centres of hegemony.

Britain has five-year terms.  Does anyone detect good government there?  The USA has four-year presidential terms.  Anyone think Biden should be going full-term?  Are the Americans on their knees thanking the heavens that they don’t have three-year terms for presidents?  Canada has four-year terms.  Extra time for Justin Trudeau.  The Lenin communist dictatorship after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 had five-year plans.  Plenty of long-termism there.

Here is an idea.  Two-year parliamentary terms.  Or even one-year terms.  Throw in recall elections like they have in some US States, and citizen-initiated referendums like they have in Switzerland, and we might see some more accountable governance.  It is only when a politician’s fear of losing government overtakes his lust for control that we-the-people have a fighting chance at getting governments to actually do what we want, and refrain from doing things we decidedly do not want.

Feebly, the Australian Parliament opines:

Perhaps the most tangible benefit identified about the introduction of a longer parliamentary term is the reduction of costs associated with holding less frequent elections.

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Completed_Inquiries/em/elect04/chapter7#:~:text=Perhaps%20the%20most%20tangible%20benefit,with%20holding%20less%20frequent%20elections.

Maybe, instead, we should end the public funding of elections, one giant rort (again, vigorously agreed by the party duopoly).  That would help.  And they think this is the strongest argument for longer terms?

Someone at the Australian National University (the Australian Studies Institute) opines:

As all Australian states are operating successfully with four-year terms what might be constraining recent federal governments from trying to achieve the same.

https://ausi.anu.edu.au/news/opinion-why-were-ready-switch-four-year-terms-federal-parliament

My one response – define “successfully”.  The same write notes:

From a planning, relationship and confidence in government perspective business strongly favours a four-year cycle. As the economy is heavily reliant on business confidence its view is important to the national interest.  (Emphasis added).

I am ashamed to admit that the ANU was once my very own university.  I would fail a first-year pol sci essay that argued this way.  See my views on business above.  These quaint non-arguments are redolent of the old days, where debates over things like ideal parliamentary terms (kind of) meant something significant.  They no longer do.

Why?

Australia has descended into a polity of little-to-no accountability.  Where representative democracy is a farce.  Where elections are all but meaningless.  Where up to one third of voters vote for parties and candidates other than the two branches of the UniParty.  Where governments merely feed the punters bread and circuses, while in the back rooms they come up with policies that devastate us, over and over.  How anyone sees “instability” as a problem clearly hasn’t cottoned on to the UniParty yet.  Time to bring them up to speed.  With bureaucrats running governments of either persuasion, and with the two majors agreeing on just about all the really bad stuff, there is more than enough stability to go around.

The rational voter strategy now is to throw every government out after one term, one after the other.  If we keep doing this, perhaps, eventually, they will get the message.  Or, elect outsider-independents and micro-parties in enough key seats to gain the balance of power.  To be able to do a Winston Peters.  All the research under the sun shows massive voter disillusion with the State and with the political system.  Why on earth do they think we would want to give each government an extra year in office? 

They must think we are stupid.  Oh, wait a minute, we already know that, too.

Paul Collits

15 March 2024