Four Year Fixed Terms
SHOULD AUSTRALIA HAVE 4 YEAR FIXED TERMS FOR BOTH HOUSES OF THE AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT?
The Resolution of the Committee of Management
At the last meeting of the Unitarian Church Committee of Management for 2007, a resolution was passed that a letter be sent to the incoming Federal Labor Government requesting that elections in both Houses of the Parliament should be held at the same time every 4 years. Our Unitarian Church Secretary, Marion Harper, has asked me as a former member of the House of Representatives to provide an informatory article on the advantages and disadvantages of such a change to the election process.
The Australian Constitution and its Sections
The major disadvantage to the proposal is the need to alter the Australian Constitution. It has to be borne in mind that, since the Constitution came into effect in 1901, unless all the major political Parties, namely, the Australian Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the National Party, or their former equivalents, agreed to support the alterations they were not approved by the majority of electors voting in the majority of States and the majority of all the electors voting, as is required to alter the Constitution. (see Section 128)
For example, amendments would be required to the following sections of the Constitution:-
Sections 7 and 13 specifies that senators will be chosen for a term of 6 years and section 13 also specifies the first of July as the beginning of the term for senators;
Section 28 specifies that each House of Representatives shall continue for 3 years and no longer but may sooner be dissolved by the Governor General:
Section 32 specifies the dates when election writs for House of Representatives elections shall take place and by whom.
All these sections would require alteration and both Houses of Parliament would be required, by absolute majorities, to approve the alterations before they could be presented as referendums to the electors. (Note that absolute means more than half of all members of each individual House)
Advantages of 4 year Fixed Terms
One advantage, which would probably be approved by a majority of voters, would be that Prime Ministers would no longer have the right to choose the date of a Federal Election, subject to other requirements of the Constitution. Many electors believe that it is not democratic for a Prime Minister to be able to choose an election date, solely to benefit the party of the Prime Minister. Of course it is not always a benefit, as Malcolm Fraser found out when he called the election in 1983 because he was sure he would be able to beat the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Hayden. However, the Labor Party changed its leadership from Bill Hayden to Bob Hawke, who beat him and his government at the election. It should also be noted that the business community finds it difficult to plan for the future when the election date is uncertain. Apart from double dissolutions, because Prime Ministers have frequently called elections before a three year term has been completed, in the last 30 years the average term for the House of Representatives has been approximately 27.5 months. In my own case, my 4 terms gave me an average of 29 months for each term. In other words, I only served 9 and a half years instead of 12 years. Joyce and I were 10 pound Poms, plus our 3 children so there was the occasional cry from members on the conservative side of the House of Representatives, during debates, send him back he was too expensive.
Another important advantage would be that there would be no point in the Senate voting to reject or, in any other manner, block money bills, such as Supply or Appropriation Bills, which can presently be done under the provisions of Section 53 of the Constitution. This would be because the House of Representatives would be covered by the 4 year fixed term provision. It is unlikely that electors would have forgotten the constitutional crisis caused by the Senate blocking Government Supply bills, leading to the Whitlam led ALP Government being dismissed by the Governor General in 1975. As matters stand, such an action by a hostile Senate against a Government could take place again. Not all Governors General have personalities of such dishonour and boorishness as the 1975 Governor General. When Sir Ninian Stephen was Governor General, Joyce and I, among a number of other parliamentarians and their spouses were invited to dinner at Government House. Sir Ninian Stephen asked Joyce to accompany him to the dining room and I found myself without a partner. So I joined the procession on my own only to find, to the amusement of the other parliamentarians, Sir Ninian Stephen’s large Labrador dog accompanying me to the table.
Finally, a third advantage is that a 4 year fixed term would give Governments a longer period to prepare legislation and plan for the future. It is argued that 3 year terms means that Governments spend their first year carrying out their election promises, the second year preparing new legislation, and the third year preparing for the next election. Such ‘politically expedient’ parliamentary work is not considered of benefit for future planning policy for Australia. It is also argued that longer periods between elections would raise the standard of political debate, but not unless some changes were made to Question Time.
Disadvantages of 4 year Fixed Terms
Having mentioned above, the difficulties of changing the Constitution of Australia in general, an additional disadvantage is that changing the terms of senators from 6 years to 4 years is a change many electors would not be inclined to support, even though they might wish to support 4 years for Members of the House of Representatives. The problem is that when the Constitution came into force in 1901, the Senate was considered a States House where the senators from each State would attempt to ensure that legislation from the House of Representatives, which might harm their State, was not approved. In this respect, we find that a constitution, which was framed in the 19th century, is a great handicap. In those days it seemed logical that the Senate would be a State supportive House but that is not the case in the late 20th and 21st century, when the policies of their own political party are frequently considered far more important to senators than their individual States rights.
Another disadvantage comes from the fact that the Senate is basically a House of Review and it is argued that it is important for senators to have 6 year terms because that gives them more time to become experienced with their review capacities. A House of Representatives will sometimes rush through legislation, which may be faulty in some respect, but which experienced senators can expose and propose amendments to strike out the faults. There are times, however, when one can doubt the political experience of senators. I was a member of a delegation to the International Parliamentary Union in Mexico where matters of international importance were being debated in the mid 80’s. There were many puzzled looks on the faces of the delegates from all over the world, when the head of our delegation, Senator Colston, gave a key speech to the delegates describing the gerrymandering of Queensland electorates by the then Queensland State Premier, Bjelke Petersen. Many of them weren’t even sure where Queensland was, let alone what changes to the electoral boundaries there had to do with world problems.
A final disadvantage is that the Constitution, by giving the majority of senators terms of 6 years, which covers two 3 year terms of the House of Representatives, appears to provide support for the proposal that the terms of senators should be extended to 8 years, in order to cover two 4 year terms of the House of Representatives. Several States have extended the terms of their upper houses to 8 years, to coincide with the extensions to 4 years of the terms of their lower houses (as has been done in Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia) but it is unlikely that skeptical voters would approve of 8 years terms for senators. These changes have been made in those States despite many political parties having already expressed the view that 8 years is too long a period for them to be able to rely on parliamentarians remaining loyal to their party.
ALTERNATIVE CHANGES NOT INVOLVING THE CONSTITUTION
It should be pointed out that the changes made to the structure of the Victorian Upper House did not require any change to the Victorian Constitution as it was within the powers of the Victorian Parliament to make those changes. I would therefore like to make two proposals which could improve our parliamentary system, without involving changes to the Australian Constitution.
The first proposal is quite simple and that is to introduce optional preferential voting for Federal elections. Optional Preferential voting enables electors to vote for only one parliamentary candidate or any number of other candidates on the ballot paper. The elector has to vote, for example where there were nine candidates, 1 for one candidate, or 1 and 2 for two candidates, or 1, 2, and 3 for 3 candidates, and so on for all the candidates the elector wishes to support. With this method an elector does not have to give any preferences for candidates the elector does not wish to support.
The major parties would, no doubt, oppose such a system as they could fail to get support from electors who resent having to vote for all candidates for their vote to be formal. Nevertheless such a proposal would be more likely to be successfully adopted than when adoption requires changes to the Australian Constitution.
The second proposal which could be introduced without requiring changes to the Australian Constitution, is to make handing out How to Vote cards at polling stations illegal. Instead, inside the polling stations large placards could indicate the How to Vote recommendations of each Party participating in the election. Such a proposal would save a huge waste of paper and if, at the same time, optional preferential voting was introduced, voting procedures would be considerably simplified for the benefit of democracy and the voters. Mind you, counting the votes has not always been the formal process of these days. Some years ago, when I lived in Kilsyth, I was appointed a scrutineer by the Labor Party. The man in charge of the polling booth called all the scrutineers into the booth at 6pm, when the voting had closed. We were a mixed bunch of Labor and Liberal supporters but none of the other parties were represented. As time passed, the man in charge became impatient as the counting was slower than he expected and so he asked us scrutineers to join in the counting of the votes. We agreed, keeping an eagle eye on each other, but one thing is certain, scrutineers handling the votes would not be allowed these days.
A MAJOR CHANGE TO THE AUSTRALIAN CONSTITUTION
Since changes to the Constitution have played a large part in my analysis of the difficulties in obtaining support for 4 year fixed terms in the Federal Parliament, I would like to make a comment about a major change, which would obviously require a completely new Australian Constitution. The major change would arise if Australia became a republic with, for example, a President elected to head our country but whose responsibilities would be limited to ceremonial activities, and who had gained Presidential status through being a distinguished Australian citizen. There does not appear to be any doubt that a majority of Australians would prefer that we become a republic instead of being led by Queen Elizabeth, with her representative, the Governor General, having the power to dismiss an Australian Government. One of the main reasons why the Republican Movement has not been successful, so far, is that they have failed to set out the duties of a President of the Republic. It is clear that Australian voters will not support the Republican Movement until they specify the powers of the President of an Australian Republic. However, if Australia were to become a republic, a new Constitution would have to be introduced at the same time, as was done when we became an independent Commonwealth in 1901.
CONCLUSION
In preparing the above comments on the proposed change to our parliamentary system by the introduction of 4 year fixed terms for the Senate and the House of Representatives, I have tried to avoid what is a most complex issue by simplifying a number of the facts. Personally, I agree with the proposal but there are many more minor advantages and disadvantages, which are brought up when the matter is discussed. Our problem is that we have a Constitution, framed by Australians of great distinction in the final decade of the 19th century, but they were people who were completely unaware of the Australia of today. A number of Constitutional amendments have been made over the years, some very important, but mainly arising from interpretations of our Constitution by the High Court. Bearing in mind that the High Court judges are chosen by Prime Ministers, instead of a non-biased Committee, the changes have not always been favourable to democratic, industrial, and social values.
The plain fact is that we need a new Constitution. Unfortunately, our political system does not produce many Australians of distinction who could prepare such a Constitution without political bias. Even if we were able to find such people, our media and politicians would be unlikely to support their proposed Constitution. Perhaps there is some hope, bearing in mind that Victoria has now produced a Bill of Rights and Victoria also changed its Parliament by reducing the conservative power of its Upper House. In my view those were real reforms, with the word reform used correctly, as opposed to the use of the word to describe political changes, which were not reforms but often changes for the worse.
Hopefully, there might also be some agreement with the two proposals I have introduced, which do not require changes to the Australian Constitution. However, what about Australia becoming a republic? I leave the answer in your hands!
Peter Milton (Former Member of the House of Representatives for the seat of La Trobe)
(1980 to 1990)
February 2008