Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer souded a touch hypocritical on Monday when he called for the House of Representatives to be extended to four years. His leader Prime Minister John Howard had only the day before shaved six months of his three-year term to go to the people.
Mr Fischer argued that governments be given more time to implement their agendas. The argument does not sit well with what Mr Howard has done. Mr Howard seemed more pre-occupied in taking advantage of conditions now rather than having to face the possibility of them deteriorating as the normal three-year term ends. It is a dilemma faced by every Prime Minister: to go early while conditions are good or wait and risk being forced into an election in an unfavourable climate as the term expires.
Mr Fischer is right in one respect: the Australian election cycle is too short. We have too many elections. And given the number of state elections, in which federal politicians inevitably become involved, Australia averages an election every five months. It is bizarre. It results in far too much short-term vision and not enough long-term vision. It is true that Australians do separate state and federal issues, nonetheless there is still interaction as witnessed by Mr Howard’s intercession in the recent Tasmania election, promising $150 milion in debt relief if Tasmania privatised the Hydo-Electic Commission — a policy position of his Tasmanian Liberal colleagues, but not the Labor Party. It was a partisan action to help his mate. Fair enough, but it illustrates the point that too much policy is made on the hop because of imminent elections in Australia.
However, the solution is not that proposed by Mr Fischer. Mr Fischer wants a four-year maximum terms for the House of Representatives and and eight-year term for senators, with half being elected every four years.
This has several difficulties. The first is that many people would think that eight years is too long a term for senators. It makes the position more a numbers-game sinecure than a job of representation with accountability. The second is that it does not overcome the problem of the present system that enables the Prime Minister to call an election more or less when he wants to suit his own political advantage. The Prime Minister would still face the dilemma of whether to go early or wait the full term. A greater difficulty is record of referendums to change electoral cycles. Six referendums that proposed changes to the Senate’s electoral cycle have all failed.
A better solution would be to leave the Senate alone, and rather change the House of Represenatives terms to synchronise with it. It would mean a fixed three year the term for the House of Representatives, with a fixed election date. Perhaps it could be the first Saturday in December, or the second Saturday in March, which have been common election months.
It would be even better if all state elections were held on the same day.
It would create greater certainty for business and allow much mroe certain planning for the huge number of people in Australia who one way or another are involved in elections, including the whole of the public service.
Of course, there would remain the question of what to do when there is a clash between the House of Representatives and the Senate. At present the Senate has power of the money supply to the Government which is created in the Hosue of Representatives, but the Prime Minister has power over a Senate that blocks his legislative program. Those powers should be rearranged. The Senate should lose its power over supply and the Prime Minister should lose his power to call a double dissolution. Rather blocked Bills should should return after the next election when they could be passed by the House of Representatives alone.
The Senate would become a genuine house of review with powers to delay bills up to three years, but not to block them forever, particularly after they have been on the table through an election period.
Much of this, of course, is pipe-dreaming, because ulitmately, the Prime Minister controls the initiating process for referendums, even if the people control the ratifying process. No Prime Minister is going to inititiate something which will take away some of his power to manipulate election dates to get an advantage, however good it might be for the country. We only have to witness the timing of this election. He cynicism of the timing of the Coalition’s tax package and the subsequent election reveals the desire of the Prime Minister to escape scrutiny. The five-week election period co-incides with school holidays, the Commonwealth Games and the football-finals season. These will provide distractions, perhaps.
The calling of this election unnecessarily early reveals defects in the system. It is absurd, too, that the senators elected on October 3, will have to wait nine months to take their seats. Whatever democratic opinion is expressed on October 3 it should find its way into the institutions much sooner than that.
By October 3, Australia will have had 12 elections in 26 years. And average of one every 26 months. It is unnecessarily destabilising. Most of the trouble has stemmed from the Senate being able to block Supply and to block Bills with only a double dissolution to unblock the situation. This election and the history of elections since 1972 puts the lie to those who say the system ain’t broke so don’t fix it. The system is at least partially defective and in need of a tune-up. Mr Fischer apparently agrees, but he proposes the wrong solution.