Election fatigue leads to renewed calls for four-year fixed terms

Australia Broadcast Center

12 hours ago

When Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff strode into the tally room following Saturday's state election, a chant went up among his Liberal supporters.
"Four more years! Four more years!"
The early results showed the Liberals had won the most seats of any party — putting them within striking distance of another term in office.
But even if Mr Rockliff gains enough support from the crossbench to govern in minority, there's no guarantee it will last another four years.
Recent history shows Tasmanians have been forced to cast ballots in state elections four times in the past seven years.
The past three elections — in 2021, 2024 and 2025 — have all been called early.
While the most recent came after a successful motion of no-confidence in the premier, the other two were brought on by the premier of the day.
It has prompted some politicians to call for greater stability in the form of fixed parliamentary terms.
"If there's one thing I think all Tasmanians can agree on after this election we've just had, it's that we should now be putting in place fixed four-year terms," independent upper house MLC Meg Webb said.
While legislation for fixed terms would still allow for the early dissolution of parliament in exceptional circumstances, Ms Webb said it would set a higher benchmark for snap polls.
She said this would avoid disruptions to policy development and prevent already strained budgets from being further burdened by expensive funding commitments during election campaigns.
Ms Webb encouraged incoming crossbenchers, who will hold the balance of power in the new parliament, to push for fixed terms as part of their negotiations with the major parties.
"What we have now is a power-sharing parliament, a minority government situation, where the crossbench could bring about this important reform and ask for it to be part of a shared way forward under this new parliament."
Apart from federal parliament, Tasmania is the only other Australian jurisdiction without fixed terms for its lower house.
But Jill Sheppard, a senior political lecturer in politics at the Australian National University, said it was not a "silver bullet" to resolve instability.
"Fixed terms are a bit of a Band-Aid applied on that lack of stability, but it won't really fix the problem," Dr Sheppard said.
She said the main reason for the recent lack of stability in Tasmania was the state's electoral system, known as Hare-Clark, in which seven members are elected in each of the five electorates.
While the system delivers parliaments reflective of the community's political diversity, she and other analysts say it has an increasing tendency to result in minority governments that rely on crossbench support.
"Now, the upshot of that would be you're just rotating Liberal and Labor governments, and that's not always a great way to make progress, to make change in a state.
"So getting rid of Hare-Clark would absolutely increase stability, but it would decrease that feeling of being represented no matter what part of the state you're from."
She said politicians in Tasmania needed to become more collaborative to avoid putting voters through unwanted early elections.
"The thing that should be stopping these parties going back to the electorate is the shame of that," she said.
"And I think the result for Labor on the weekend will hopefully dissuade future governments from falling apart and future oppositions from trying these no-confidence motions."
Election analyst Kevin Bonham said while fixed terms had some benefits, they were outweighed by negatives.
One of those was the potential for politicians to defect mid-term, changing the make-up of parliament, but forbidding the premier from seeking a new mandate via a fresh election.
"So, I support the government of the day having the ability to go to an election and seek a mandate from voters when it wants to.
"And I believe that voters will see through elections that are called opportunistically for political reasons.
"I mean, we've seen in this election that there was a significant backlash against the fact the election was on at all."
Dr Bonham noted that even if fixed terms had been in place, it would not have prevented the most recent election, which occurred after a vote of no-confidence.
He said minority governments needed flexible agendas to ensure the ongoing stability of hung parliaments.
"There has to be more of an attitude that 'we will compromise on outcomes if we don't win a majority'," Dr Bonham said.
"It's fine to run for an election and say, 'this is what we will do if we win'.
"But if you don't get a majority, you've sort of not won, even if you're the government.
"And there should be a recognition that you may have to do deals on policy in these situations."
A Liberal spokesperson said the party was not ruling out the option of minimum parliamentary terms.
"We are open to discussions on fixed terms," they said.
"All policies will be considered on merit by the new parliament."
The Labor Party did not provide a response to the ABC's request for comment.