There are plans afoot when we vote for a new Federal Government later this year to also hold a referendum to enable the constitution to be changed in order to extend the Federal Parliamentary term from three to four years.

This must be rejected emphatically.

Given the outrageous rorting of democratic processes in recent decades, in particular by the Howard Government, any move to reduce the accountability of Federal politicians to the Australian electorate will only make an already bad situation worse.

A ludicrous by-product of this 'reform' is that the term of Senators will be extended from 6 years to 8 years, which is practically for life. It will be possible for a Senators such as the infamous late Mal Colston or Barnaby Joyce (in the case of Telstra privatisation) to break solmenly made promises to the electorate and not be held to account for almost another eight years.

Not only has this outrageous proposal enjoy the bipartisan support of both major parties, but even the Democrats, of whom we should be able to expect better, have given their support. The Greens are on record as being in opposition, but their voice appears to have been muted so far.

It is still not too late to stop this but we need to raise our voices now.

Thanks very much for the heads-up daggett. Glad to see some contributors can get important topics up.

I know this was a recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in its 2005 Report on the conduct of the 2004 Federal elections, but that was all I had heard had happened. I thought it had died a natural. What's your source for it having gone further?

Interestingly, the present Chair of the JSCEM, Sophie Mirabella (nee Panopoulos) gave a commendably succinct dissenting report in respect of this proposal. Wonder where that leaves her, or the rest of them? She'll get to earn her pay in coming days if she's even half fair dinkum! She is, I understand, a barrister by profession. I hope for Australia's sake she is a good one.

This proposal was one of the four that was put up for referendum on 3 September 1988. All four proposals on that occasion were rejected with the record lowest YES votes in the history of Federal referenda. Nothing has changed in the mean time, except for the worse, in the political and electoral sphere.

Have you read this post in connection with those 1988 referenda: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6147#88417 and the following seven posts? I know you'll appreciate their import. You know me daggett: I'm a chapter and verse man. The article generating this thread is also excellent in its own right, although my posts develop one aspect of it only - see http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6147 .

There may well be method in their referendum madness, though, but I'll explain more about that later.

The 1967 referendum was the first at which I ever voted. The proposal was bi-partisanly supported. I (along with 90% of all other voters) voted YES. I now know I was conned. NEVER AGAIN will I vote anything but NO for a bi-partisanly supported proposal! See this link about saying YES or NO: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2136 .

Well Done!

What if they combined longer terms with term limits? Say extending parliamentary terms to four or five years but limiting the number of consecutive terms a person could serve to two or three?

Extending the length of a parliamentary term might have an upside. It might actually lengthen the short term view of the encumbant government. Right now, they spend two years trying to win the next election.

let's just vote against politicians.

The method in the proposed referendum madness.

Much has been made recently of the 2006 changes to electoral law whereby the electoral rolls will now close at 6:00 PM on the day the Governor-General's eight writs for the elections are issued, instead of seven days after issue as had been the case since 1983. A significant proportion of such commentary has been critical of these changes, together with the Proof of Identity requirements that have been introduced, with critics attempting to make out that genuinely eligible electors may be effectively disfranchised thereby. A very large proportion of the critical commentary has come from academe.

Consider carefully that any seven day period of grace, such as that previously prescribed, would have contained a Saturday and a Sunday, both non-working days with respect to AEC office hours. Thus five full working days only, plus the hours remaining between actual signing until 6:00 PM on the day of issue of the writs if they were to have been issued on a weekday, would have been available to the AEC to get all enrolments correctly, or apparently correctly, entered up in their centralized roll management system.

As it has been explained to me, the closure of the rolls at 6:00 PM on the day of issue of the writs as prescribed under the 2006 amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act only applies to new, that is, first time, applicants for enrolment. If there is a change required to an already existing enrolment (arising, for example, out of a move of residence) then a three-day period of grace applies. The vast bulk of roll transactions made in the week before roll closure since the introduction of the seven days of grace in 1983 have been transfers of existing enrolments, not new first time enrolments.

So, in effect, for the vast bulk of roll transactions, post-writ-issue processing time remains at at least 60% of what it has been since 1983. Newly eligible intending electors, as a class, have been victims of discrimination.

Tedious, ain't it, daggett?

4 year terms ? yes & no. A two year term would sufficient for a Labor Government to accomplish their standard mismanagment of the economy. On the other hand it usually takes 8 - 10 years of Coalition Government to undo the Labor damage. I think let's leave it at 3 years.