100%, mhaze. I guess you can't beat that.

Think of the money that we spend by having frequent
elections. The Prime Minister can call an election
any time the party chooses. Three year elections
doesn't give adequate time for the elected to implement
their policies before they have to prepare for the
next election. A longer fixed term would be more
economical and stable. It is only rational
that the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader see
these advantages. As for Referendums which cost a
fortune - it is time that we had a look at amending our
Constitution in this the 21st Century.

Leoj mentions the Senate. That abomination has to go, of course.

It wouldn't matter how long you gave the dogs breakfast parliament of Oz to do a job, with the dog's tail, the senate, wagging the dog, the parliament, they are never going to do anything worth the effort.

I would be happy to have a Referendum, provided we got the chance to chose a 2 year term instead of 4 or 3. At least then we might have a chance of voting for the same prime minister, before their party dump him.

Dear GrahamY,

I will admit to scratching my head over you Libs sometimes. Here is Turnbull, literally streets ahead of Shorten in personal approval ratings while the rest of the party continues to be on the nose with the majority of Australians. Yet you lot don't seem to get it. You keep making out that he is the source of all your woes.

How about having a look in your own back yard. You have a bunch of arrogant, climate change denying, pompous, selfserving, damaging so called conservatives (I use that term loosely) ripping the place apart and Turnbull gets the blame. He is one of the few thing that lot have going for them but he continues to be pilloried. Perhaps the Abbott disease will clear itself before the next election but you have so many infected that it is hard to see it happening.

I don't expect that even the current crop of clueless leaders actually believe they could get a referendum up on this issue. Majority of voters in a majority of states - no chance.

Its being raised because it fills a need for each side. For Shorten it makes it look like he's thinking about the future and is prepared to take on the tough issues (chortle).

For Turnbull? Last week (last weak?) he suffered a humiliating loss to the AbbottAbbott bogeyman at the Lib conference and there was every chance that that'd be the news cycle for the next few days. So what to do? Create a diversion so that the 27 year old know-nothings (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/05/white-house-official-on-some-reporters-overseas-expertise-they-literally-know-nothing/?utm_term=.c9f23bf8df3b) will run off in another direction.

This idea won't go anywhere. But it'll come up again occasionally when the news cycle needs to be changed.

Paul Keating was said to have said that, if the current story-line doesn't suit, chuck a bloody big piece of red meat in the other direction and let the press chase that. His go-to story was the republic. Whenever he needed to change the story-line he'd suddenly develop new interest in the republic issue. And off the hounds would bound.

If you see a big chunk of meat headed in one direction look in the other direction to find out what the pollies are trying to distract you from.