One of the arguments against fixed-term parliaments is that with the election date known so far in advance, politicians would be electioneering for longer periods of time than with the system of the Prime Minister determining the election date and the length of the official campaign.
The two year extravaganza leading up to the first Tuesday in November for the US presidential election is cited as evidence of this.
It is a poor example for Australia. Events in the ACT are proving this argument against fixed terms to be nonsense.
Americans go through a primary (or pre-selection) process which involves a large number of ordinary voters. Here pre-selections are done in back rooms that used to be smoke-filled.
In any event, politicians are electioneering all the time, whether an election date has been set or not. The advantage of the fixed term is that we don’t have to listen to months of speculative drivel about early elections.
Other point is that the governing side does not get and unfair advantage by being able to capitalise on some transient undeserved popularity, as Margaret Thatcher was able to do with the Falklands but George Bush was unable to do with the Gulf War.
The ACT election is on the third Saturday in February every third year. So we can have an orderly process of candidate selection and campaigning. The length and strength of that campaigning has little to do with whether the election date is fixed and a lot to do with how much money the political parties have to spend.
The ACT campaign has begun quietly six months before the poll. (Although perhaps there are only five “”shopping months” till poll day, given the nation goes walkabout the week before Christmas and does not come back till after Australia Day.)
Residents of Molonglo were treated to their first election mailer during the week.
“”Introducing Your Local Candidates”, it said, and there followed snapshots of seven candidates for seven seats, as if it were an Iron-Curtain-days Bulgarian election with no hint of two-party-style contest. The name of the Australian Labor Party did not appear.
There was also an alarming absence of professional qualifications.
Terry Connolly modestly refrained from mentioning that he has an honours law degree from Adelaide and a masters degree from ANU, preferring instead to say he “”is well-known for his concern for the citizens of Canberra”. Surely, some tertiary legal qualifications are worth trumpeting in your Attorney-General.
“”Strong commitment to social justice”, “”active participant”, “”actively involved with” and “”very concerned about” are preferred over whether any of the candidates have any qualifications in law, botany, accountancy, engineering, carpentry, teaching, statistics, medicine, history or whatever.
Why do we need any individuals with professional and trade qualifications to run a government when we are all actively involved in being concerned with community issues with a strong commitment to social justice and social equity?
Meanwhile, on the other side of politics, individualism threatens the Liberals’ chances of improving its profile and image.
Liberal leader Kate Carnell has made no secret of wanting a woman to replace the retiring Lou Westende. She is the only woman Liberal MLA. She would also like the party to get a sitting MLA in Ginninderra. Only one of the endorsed candidates fits those criteria: former local councillor in Sydney Cheryl Hill.
If it had been the Labor Party a deal would have been stitched up for the good of the party.
As it is the Libs, however, Labor can watch with some glee as Hill has to slug it out on August 6 with the ambitions of Bill Stefaniak and Lyle Dunne (who are candidates for Ginninderra, but male) and Gwen Wilcox (who is female, but a candidate for Molonglo).
Perhaps also, she does not need any more law-and-order, constitutional monarchist, dry economists in her team just now. Sure, Stefaniak mobilised the police vote at the last election, but all that did was to get several thousand already-Liberal-voting people to put Stefaniak ahead of Trevor Kaine. Arguably there was no large catch of Labor voters.
Carnell has got to attract former Follett voters who do not like the way the Government has handled health and planning. The law-and-order, monarchist economic dries have nowhere else to go.