The 124-year-old feature of Australian elections that Albanese supports changing
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Should Australia adopt longer parliamentary terms? These are the main arguments for and against, and how likely the change is to occur.

Albo supports shifting from a PM called election within a 3 year term to a 4 year term of fixed length.

“If you’ve got a three-year cycle, in practice, that often means that you really only have a shorter window of perhaps a couple of years to bring about substantial reform, by which time you’re looking at the next election,” he said.

Having a fixed term of parliament would remove the ability for prime ministers to call early elections, as well, which typically favour the incumbent government.

  • brisk@aussie.zone
    0·
    29 days ago

    “If you’ve got a three-year cycle, in practice, that often means that you really only have a shorter window of perhaps a couple of years to bring about substantial reform, by which time you’re looking at the next election,” he said.

    No, you have three years to bring about substantial reform. If you decide to prioritise campaigning over reform, that’s your decision and a longer term won’t change that.

    There was a significant push for one year terms early on, I’d much rather see that than a reduction in our democratic voice.

    • Joshi@aussie.zoneOP
      0·
      29 days ago

      As always I have serious reservations about calling representative government democracy at all, that being said I think that fixed term lengths is a greater step forward in democracy than a longer term length would be a step back. If that’s the compromise I think it’s worthwhile.