Australia’s current Prime Minister has suggested that Commonwealth Parliaments should go four years between elections, instead of the current three. As it says in the Daily Mail:

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.

Interestingly, the Prime Minister 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 would be advancing in order to persuade people.

A former (much better) Prime Minister, John Howard, agrees.

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

You might think Airbus Albo has been warned off referendums, but apparently not. His experience with the Voice to Parliament has not cured him of the apparent desire to be remembered for something other than destroying the country.

This latest idea regarding four-year terms is very much a UniParty pitch.

Those most likely to be in power naturally want more time. It isn’t enough that the macro freedom parties have next to no chance of accessing power, in view 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 the way politicians behave in power should shout pretty loudly, ‘No way!’ and do what we can to stop this.

Representatives of the business community, naturally, agree with the proposed four-year terms. As written in the Australian Financial Review:

…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.

Others may suggest that it makes crony capitalism easier is to be applauded. 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 politicians had an 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.

What do politicians do with their time? We could mention the Covid dictatorship, with its military policing, border closures, enforced jabs of questionable safety, and lockdowns. This is not a Labor problem. The two major parties are as bad as each other. If you want to know where Digital ID came from, ask Paul Fletcher. 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.

Unsurprisingly, big business loves local government amalgamations, mass immigration, women in the workforce, green-washing, and Wokeism. Meanwhile, these businesses have forgotten customer service and only think about appeasing the progressive social media mob. Why would we listen to them on any issue?

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? America has four-year presidential terms. Does 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 opined:

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.

Maybe we should end the public funding of elections which, in my belief, is 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) opined:

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

My one response – define ‘successfully’. The same written 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 university. I would fail a first-year political science 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 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. Anyone who 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 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 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.

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