I’m an election lover, but in Australia, they just come along too often

There’s a viral clip brilliantly capturing election fatigue that lives rent-free in my head.

Brenda from Bristol is informed by a BBC reporter that then British prime minister Theresa May has just called a snap election. “You’re joking,” she says, her West Country accent about to dramatically lilt. “Not another one. For God’s sake, I can’t stand this!”

Brenda lives in a country with voluntary voting that usually has up to five-year election terms.

Anyone going to a wedding on election day may want to consider voting early.Credit: Jason South

Imagine if she were to suffer such democratic assault on average every 2½ years – the average Australian term since Federation. Brenda’s blood would boil.

It’s a sentiment Australians may justifiably share. We have one of the shortest election terms in the democratic world. We’re in a tiny cohort of global outliers with three-year terms. Among 186 nations with active legislatures, just over half have five-year terms, and 40 per cent have four-year terms.

Even as a self-confessed election lover, I’m feeling Saturday’s election is premature.

It’s not just because myself (or Brenda) can’t believe how quickly time has elapsed since the last one. We only need to look to recent UK and US events to see how four-year terms would improve Australia.

UK PM Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves took their toughest decisions in their first six months (such as cutting the pensioners’ winter fuel payment to balance the budget), meaning they have another four years to show the UK public they can fulfil their mandate.

“Democracy sausages” (and fundraising food stalls) are part of Australia’s election days.Credit: Darrian Traynor

This was a massively unpopular decision, seemingly out of step with Labour’s usually more compassionate approach towards social welfare and fairness. But UK Labour needed to prove it could be trusted with the economy not to just tax and spend. This early on, it could afford to implement longer-term policy reform, without having a nervous daily eye on opinion polls.

It’s a strategic approach not afforded to Anthony Albanese or his predecessors, who must always consider vote-winning policies and the next election in a cycle two whole years shorter.

Our minuscule terms mean that governments live in constant quasi-campaigning mind frames rather than nation-building ones. It leads to three-word slogans over the more prosaic and eloquent description of a harder-won and more impactful long-term change outside short-term political drama and soundbites. It stifles ambition by deterring PMs from taking bold, difficult and differentiating decisions for the good of the country, which results in voter disillusionment.

Trump’s agenda – loved or loathed – has four full years to play out, meaning the US public can properly assess if they’re really better off under him, even if he has acted alarmingly swiftly and showily on his early executive orders.

Another year could enable Albanese to build his disjointed narrative into something more cogent, rather than Peter Dutton coming in and, within months, reversing all Albanese’s major policies, as Trump has done with Biden’s.

It would leave the country at an impasse, the narrow pendulum swing meaning we’re without the clear coherent momentum of direction, and instead in a stagnant state of slow stalemate.

I’m not the first to call for this. Eight years ago, federal Liberal MP David Coleman wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald about introducing a bill to extend parliamentary terms from three to four years.

He had clear, compelling reasons – governments would get more done, consistency with the states’ term lengths, and a boom in economic activity as investors hold off during election periods. Yet his bill didn’t incite a referendum, as hoped.

A year ago, academic Jill Sheppard wrote for the Parliament of Australia website weighing up the pros and cons, stating that both Albanese and Dutton (and various former PMs) supported a four-year term. Then again, what leader wouldn’t support lengthening their short time in power? Sheppard only really zones in on one major con: the difficulty of this passing at referendum.

But the difficulty of achieving change shouldn’t deter us from seeking it, or hold us back from wanting a better system.

At a time of market volatility, two major wars and the rise of populism, democratic stability is more crucial than ever to voters.

Four-year terms wouldn’t just embolden our leaders. They’d embolden us – in the stories we can tell about our nation, and the patience we’re sometimes willing to show to see meaningful change properly implemented.

Attention spans are shortening everywhere, but Australians are more than capable of being counterintuitive and saying the thing leaders covet: give us another year. Show us what you can really do. Then we’ll decide if you’re worth another tiny term.

Gary Nunn is a freelance writer.