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It's been a feature of Australia's elections since federation. Albanese supports a change (www.sbs.com.au)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Albo supports shifting from a PM called election within a 3 year term to a 4 year term of fixed length.

"If you've got a three-year cycle, in practice, that often means that you really only have a shorter window of perhaps a couple of years to bring about substantial reform, by which time you're looking at the next election," he said.

Having a fixed term of parliament would remove the ability for prime ministers to call early elections, as well, which typically favour the incumbent government.

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[–] Balthazar 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Because the date of the election is known in the US, the entire 18 months leading up to the election is all about the election. You don't want the political exhaustion that goes with that.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The US has a weird political culture in a lot of ways. I know France and Germany have fixed term lengths and I certainly don't get the impression that they have that problem.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

My perception, based on the election cycles I followed, is that, in Europe, the campaign period tends to be bigger when it becomes clear there will be early elections.

For normal elections the campaign period is usually about 1 month. And for early elections there's the entire dance around bringing the government down for a few weeks, and then everyone will be on full campaign mode until the election.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

We already have parties getting into campaign mode way earlier than 1 month. The election probably won't be until May, but there's already a strong sense that they're in campaign mode.