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Speaker 1: Welcome to Ask Fear and Greed, where we take your

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Speaker 1: questions and do our very best to answer them. I'm

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Speaker 1: Michael Thompson, and good afternoon, Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Michael, Sean.

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Speaker 1: Today's question comes from Daniel, and there's multiple ways to

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Speaker 1: ask a question. You can do it via Instagram or

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Speaker 1: TikTok or basically any of the social media platforms LinkedIn

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Speaker 1: Daniel's don't via our website Fearangreed dot com dot au.

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Speaker 1: And he says, hey, guys, I've been listening since the beginning,

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Speaker 1: so it's been there for Daniel. Excellent work, Daniel, and

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Speaker 1: he goes, I really enjoy the unbiased reporting.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: A question for Ask Fear and Greed, Daniel says, says,

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Speaker 1: why do we still have three year terms for the

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Speaker 1: prime minister? He goes, I know Albo has pushed for

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Speaker 1: four years, but even then I feel like that isn't enough.

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Speaker 1: It encourages shortsighted plans because it is results driven so

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Speaker 1: they can get re elected. But three to four years

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Speaker 1: sometimes isn't enough. If you really want to plan for

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Speaker 1: proper change, could a sick year term work? It's a

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Speaker 1: good it is a very good question, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a cracking question.

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Speaker 1: Do you have an answer for it? I do, I do.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I love this. I love this kind of question.

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Speaker 1: I love politics, And this is one of those questions

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Speaker 1: that people actually like to discuss. It like dinner parties

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Speaker 1: and barbacues and things. It's something that everyone tends to

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Speaker 1: have an opinion on and there's a bit of history

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Speaker 1: to it. Obviously, with three year terms, it goes back

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Speaker 1: a long way. Obviously, it goes back to Federation when

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Speaker 1: at that time all of the individual states when they

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Speaker 1: came together, all had three year terms. So it made

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Speaker 1: sense for the Federation, the federal government then to have

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Speaker 1: three year terms to match that. Plus I'd already agreed

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Speaker 1: that the Senate was going to have six year terms,

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Speaker 1: and so that way you could have the lower house,

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Speaker 1: the House of Reps, having three year terms and then

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Speaker 1: every three years all of the lower House MPs would

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Speaker 1: be up for re election and half of the Senators.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, you're fast forward now. So here we are

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Speaker 1: in kind of late twenty twenty four, and all of

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Speaker 1: the states have changed. They're all, I think, with the

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Speaker 1: exception of Tasmania. Now they are all on kind of

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Speaker 1: fixed four year terms. Just over time they've made this change,

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Speaker 1: So this whole argument of consistency with the States is

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Speaker 1: kind of irrelevant now. So that's kind of half of

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Speaker 1: the issue out of the way.

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Speaker 2: The other half, Michael the other half.

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Speaker 1: The other half. The challenge is that the politicians have

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Speaker 1: been proposing this for a long time. They've been putting

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Speaker 1: this forward and so Elbow suggesting it is it is

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Speaker 1: not the first time that a Prime minister has floated

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Speaker 1: this idea of moving from say three years to four years.

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Speaker 1: The challenge here is that the current three year and

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Speaker 1: part of what Daniel is kind of saying here is

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Speaker 1: that the three year term means that there is typically

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Speaker 1: a year kind of settling in into a government. There

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Speaker 1: is a year of actual policy and actual governing in

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Speaker 1: the middle of it, and then there is a year

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Speaker 1: that is the pre election year, where everything is right,

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Speaker 1: everything has an eye on the prize, which is essentially

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Speaker 1: getting re elected. That's when you priority suddenly change. Anthony

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Speaker 1: Albanezy not the first person to call for it, It's

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Speaker 1: not even the only one in Parliament right now who

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Speaker 1: wants it. Peter Dutton wants it as well. So this

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Speaker 1: bipartisan support for this. John Howard wanted this, Kim Beasley

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Speaker 1: wanted this, Bob Hawk wanted this. It's not, though, an

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Speaker 1: easy change to make. The problem is that it does

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Speaker 1: require a referendum to make this change to federal Parliament.

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Speaker 1: Out of all of the I get very passionate about it.

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Speaker 1: I get really excited about this kind of thing. So

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Speaker 1: it tells you a lot about the dinner parties and

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Speaker 1: the barbecues that I go to. I don't get invited

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Speaker 1: to many of them anymore. Bob Hawk is the only

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Speaker 1: person to have actually put it to the people with

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Speaker 1: a referendum, and it got obliterated. None of the states

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Speaker 1: supported it.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: It got the second lowest overall yes vote ever in

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Speaker 1: Australian history. Wow, like that is that is a significant defeat.

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Speaker 1: People just don't want this. Having said that, that was

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Speaker 1: in the eighties, things might have changed now. But I

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Speaker 1: also I just feel like it feels like people have

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Speaker 1: kind of different priorities now. Globally, you look at where

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Speaker 1: we're at, Around half the countries around the world that

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Speaker 1: have a functioning government have five year terms.

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Speaker 2: Five years. What about the Westminster ones?

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Speaker 1: Well, well, forty have four year terms that there's a

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Speaker 1: few of the Westminster systems that still have three years.

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Speaker 1: For instance, Australia New Zealand we both have have three

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Speaker 1: year terms. But there's only six. There's only six countries

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Speaker 1: left in the world that have three year terms. Australia's one,

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Speaker 1: New zeal the others, and the others are relatively small nations.

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Speaker 1: I reckon, I reckon, we are left behind on this.

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Speaker 1: It feels like we are outliers. The US interestingly is

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Speaker 1: an outlier as well. Not in terms of the presidential

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Speaker 1: election because the president is elected for four years, but

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Speaker 1: in terms of Congress, the House of Representatives is only

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Speaker 1: elected for two years. Oh they do, of course, and

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Speaker 1: then have like the midterm election.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah wow.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, you kind of put it all together and

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Speaker 1: go probably it does make sense to go for a

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Speaker 1: slightly longer period six years though six years.

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Speaker 2: I think four years good. The US does four years.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think India does four years. There's a

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Speaker 2: bunch of companies countries that do that, and to me,

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Speaker 2: it just sort of sounds right, So we don't like

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Speaker 2: and we can get rid of them. And I suppose

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Speaker 2: that's why the referendum failed. Is because if you don't

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Speaker 2: like someone, you want to be able to get rid

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Speaker 2: of them. Yeah, but it's really hard to make policy

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Speaker 2: when is not just for the government but also the opposition, right,

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Speaker 2: they need to get a negotiated position. They think, oh,

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Speaker 2: we just hang on for a couple of years, we

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Speaker 2: can do this our way, and so there's a temptation

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Speaker 2: for them as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And to Daniel's kind of point, six years is

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Speaker 1: too long with a bad.

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Speaker 2: Government, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Because you think if you get stuck with a bad

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Speaker 1: senator for instance, now that senator is in the Senate

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Speaker 1: for six years, yeah, a few of those, Yeah, indeed,

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Speaker 1: and so you just now imagine that you had a

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Speaker 1: full bad government.

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Speaker 2: Yep.

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Speaker 1: Six years is a very long time. So long story short,

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Speaker 1: there is a lot of history to it. Daniel, Yes,

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Speaker 1: probably makes a lot of sense to move to a

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Speaker 1: slightly longer term. Six years is probably too long. Let's

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Speaker 1: not go to the US model and go two years,

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Speaker 1: but maybe somewhere in between, maybe the four year mark

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Speaker 1: does kind of feel about.

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Speaker 2: Right yep, yep, yep, yep.

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Speaker 1: I'm so really kind of took over that one, didn't

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Speaker 1: I I just.

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Speaker 2: Would you like to hear from me, Daniel, No point.

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Speaker 2: Michael did a terrific job, Hammet. It actually gave us

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Speaker 2: everything we need to know about three slash four year

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Speaker 2: election cycles.

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Speaker 1: And it only took about three to four years for

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Speaker 1: me to get through it. I have a tendency to

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Speaker 1: waffle on occasion. Today was not obviously one of those. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Sean, Thank you Daniel for the question.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Michael.

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Speaker 1: Now, if you have your own question that you would

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Speaker 1: like us to answer, please send it on through. Have

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Speaker 1: I any of those social media platforms I mentioned or

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Speaker 1: do what Daniel did. Head to fearangreed dot com dot au.

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Speaker 1: Make sure you are following the podcast. I'm Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and this is Ask Fear and Greed