Growing up in a non-democratic system, chances are the president you witnessed during your puberty will be still in power when you visit the country celebrating your 40th birthday.

Of course non-democratic systems evolve into what they called ‘guided democracy’ or orchestrated elections. The message to the average voter is the same: trust the experience leader, how can we trust someone else? The wise government have searched millions (or a nation of tens or even hundreds of millions for that matter) but guess what you lucky public: we only found one who can lead the nation. The bees knees, our beloved, experienced, mutli-talented leader. The oxy-moron: there is no other leader with 20 years experience to rule the same country...(well, of course!).

Living in a democratic society, the first thing that dawned on me that its not about individuals but rather the system of governance. All today’s leaders (John Howard, Keating, Costello, etc..) were unexperienced when they came to power. Nobody expected them to be experienced and yet they were given the opportunity and made the best of it.

There are many things we like and dislike about democracies, and one of the things I like is the 2 terms limit. As a personal view, I think it makes the political landscape richer with lots of retired experienced mentoring politicians. Having one experienced leader for 20 years and lots of p-platers (borrowed from Graham Young’s article) would be of less benefit to the Australian landscape.

Is it time for the 2 terms limit?

Yes, I believe it is time for a two term limit.

The American political system has a number of ugly aspects, but also a number of positive ones.
The fact that the public has more of a say as to who leads each party as well as the two term limits, are two very positive things that we could adopt.

Limit pollies to two terms as what exactly? The US (and others) has a two term limit only for the president and that's only been the case since 1951. There is no limit on senators or congressmen. So is the suggestion that we limit people to two terms as PM or two terms as MP's?
And bear in mind that these terms are 4 years as opposed to our three - ie eight years.
Overall, I see more downside from placing arbitrary limits on periods served. Its all very well to have such limits in places where the absolute power of the people to get rid of leaders is equivocal (eg Russia will be the better for having Putin forcibly retired). But in places like Aust and the US, leave it to the people who are well placed to decide when someone's 'use-by' date has arrived.

Perhaps to understand sort of leader Kevin07 will be we need see how he copes when things do NOT go how he wants.

How will Kevin and the ALP party behave if they lose the election ?

Voters watched John Howard for a long time before he achieved the top job, people saw him cope with failure before he arrived.

If not Kevin07 might we see Kevin11 ?

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Mhaze & Polpak,

My intent was to limit the senior leardership to 2 terms. It will enrich the political debate and overall landscape and provide a reach environment for talented leadership to emerge.

Right now it seems a voter must vote for one or the other. And dare I say seems voters will be voting for one just because they dislike the alternative.

Is time to elect our Governor-General.

No Constitutional amendment required, just a simple Act of Parliament.

The Governor-General constitutionally still restricted to selecting His/Her Ministers from within either House of the Parliament