Fixed four-year terms backed by Business Council of Australia

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott has signalled support for fixed four-year terms.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott. Picture: David Geraghty

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott has signalled support for a highly contentious change to fixed four-year terms in the hope it will give governments more time to advance vital economic reforms.

The proposal for fixed terms has been floated by Bill Shorten, who is challenging the government to work with him on a model that can be successfully carried at a referendum.

Malcolm Turnbull has agreed to discuss the concept with the Opposition Leader at their next meeting. Ms Westacott yesterday said the BCA was “broadly in favour” of fixed four-year terms provided there were “proper safeguards in place”.

“Although governments have undertaken serious economic reform within the constraints of a three-year political cycle, the ­demands of the 24/7 media cycle appear to be making this harder to achieve,” Ms Westacott said. “I hope longer fixed terms would ­encourage governments to broaden their horizon and move away from the short-term thinking that is holding our country back.”

NSW Labor senator Doug Cameron yesterday observed the BCA had previously identified so-called “short-termism” as one of the key problems facing the economy. “One of the ways you get away from short-termism is to have a four-year term,” he told Sky News. “And that gives you the ­capacity to actually push good, long-term policies.”

Opinion within the Liberal Party is split, with one of the key hurdles being how Senate terms will be affected. Reform advocates have failed to agree on whether to shift to four or eight-year terms.

George Williams, a constitutional law expert at the University of NSW, has backed the case for eight-year Senate terms while Labor’s platform proposes a more radical change to embrace simultaneous fixed four-year terms for the house and Senate.

NSW Liberal David Coleman — one of the key advocates for change — has argued that four-year terms would provide greater certainty for business. He yesterday won the support of his Queensland Coalition colleague Andrew Laming, who told Sky News he was a “massive fan of four-year terms”.

“I’m more interested not in three or four-year terms, but in fixed terms. I think Australians ­deserve to know when an election date is,” Mr Laming said. “Sure, it helps the incumbent. But my first priority would be a fixed date.”

Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz said there was no pressing case for change, particularly given the dilemma about the length of Senate terms. “Under our Constitution, four-year House of Representatives terms would, as of necessity, require eight-year Senate terms,” Senator Abetz told Sky News. “I’m not sure that would necessarily be (an) attractive proposition to the Australian people.”

Mr Shorten yesterday continued to heap pressure on the government to support his plan, arguing there was a “real appetite for genuine reform which is bipartisan”. “Just for once in our political lives, why don’t we look at the positives of an idea before we look at the negatives,” Mr Shorten said.