Marty Gray on Sky News: why Australia needs four-year terms

Julia Bradley: Welcome back. Australia has one of the shortest terms of federal parliament in the world, with an election campaign on average every two years and eight months. Joining me live now is the founder of the Four Year Terms campaign, Marty Gray. Marty, thank you so much for joining us in the studio. Tell me about this campaign.

Marty Gray: Thanks so much for having me, Julia. So Four Year Terms Australia is an advocacy group that basically has one goal, which is to extend the term of Australia's federal parliament to four years. And the reason for that is really simple. Australia has one of the shortest terms of parliament in the entire world. We have a maximum term of three years, and only [three of 87 democracies] have a term that short.

Julia Bradley: Wow. It goes so quickly, doesn't it?

Marty Gray: It really does. Well, it's actually a lot quicker than three years because, unlike most places, we let our prime minister of the day choose when the election is, rather than having a set date. And the prime minister usually goes a lot earlier than three years, because they try and find a time that suits them politically. They might be polling well, the opposition...

Julia Bradley: It's a strategy, almost catching the other leader offside, as was the case with the last election.

Marty Gray: Oh, exactly. It's kind of like giving an athlete the starting pistol in a 100-metre race. They get a huge advantage. So what ends up happening is, on average, we actually have a federal election campaign every two years and eight months, which is incredibly short. And it means there's not a huge amount of time to get stuff done in government.

Julia Bradley: So how much better would four-year terms be, then?

Marty Gray: So three years to four years actually doesn't sound like a huge change.

Julia Bradley: Which is the case with our states.

Marty Gray: Exactly. Every state and territory in Australia used to have three years. They all went, "This isn't working." They moved to four. The federal government is the only outlier. So the reason why three to four is so much better is you basically double the amount of get-stuff-done time in government. First six months, last six months of any government, almost no work gets done. They're either setting up, hiring people, figuring out what they're doing; last six months, they're just campaigning for the election. So it's that middle period that's really important to actually improve people's daily lives. So if you go from [two years and eight months to four years], that middle period doubles in size, so you can get a huge amount more out of it.

Julia Bradley: So we're outliers, but also New Zealand. But they're a little bit further on in this conversation than we are.

Marty Gray: Yes. So the countries that have three years: there's New Zealand, Australia, El Salvador, Philippines, Mexico, Nauru. Not many. And New Zealand have just introduced legislation to move to four years, subject to a referendum that will happen at some point. So they've recognised that they need to change, and that has really put the issue on the agenda. And it's time that we follow suit across the Tasman.

Julia Bradley: Are Australians a bit sick of referendums, though? Are people going to be happy to go to another referendum on an issue?

Marty Gray: It's a really good point. And I think there's a few ingredients that we really need to make sure that a referendum is successful. First and foremost, we need to start talking about this more. Australians consistently, when they get told about this and the benefits of four-year terms, they support it. They understand that the current model is not working, but education is really important. The second thing is it needs to be a single referendum. So there was a referendum on this in 1988. It failed because it was with [three] other things and it didn't have bipartisan support. If you have a referendum on this, it needs to be only on this, and it needs to have bipartisan support. You can't make it seem as though any political party benefits. The only one who benefits is the country.

Julia Bradley: I mean, it's clearly not a top priority, but it is on the agenda for the Albanese government. They're running an inquiry on this at the moment, also looking at fixed terms. Is that a benefit, to fix the date of the election as a starting point?

Marty Gray: Absolutely. So you hit the nail on the head. The problem we have is we have really short maximum terms of three years, and we also don't have fixed terms. So what is being done at the moment is there's a parliamentary inquiry that's looking at this issue, and the federal government directed them to do that. So it shows that there's interest there. And what it's thinking about is how to extend those terms and fix them. And one option pre-referendum that we could do is actually introduce legislation to set a fixed term. So basically the parties all agree and pass a law to say, "This is going to be the election date." Not as rock solid as changing the Constitution, but it would be a really important first step to get us to longer terms. Because if we can get to three-year fixed terms, it's a lot better than what we have today.

Julia Bradley: Also part of this government inquiry that's being run is looking at whether we need more politicians in parliament. Surely Australians aren't going to be in favour of that.

Marty Gray: Look, 4 Year Terms Australia is focused entirely on terms and how long they stay. I can't tell you how many members of parliament there should be. What I can tell you is once they're there, they should be there for four years.

Julia Bradley: Is part of this as well... I mean, the states have a lot of power. We saw that during COVID. Isn't it time to just get everyone on the same page?

Marty Gray: Exactly. It makes it more simple. So the only reason why we have three-year federal terms in Australia is because all the states at Federation in 1901 had three-year terms. And they've all changed. So the only reason why we have three-year terms no longer exists. So the federal government really needs to keep up and move to four years. And it causes a huge amount of issues between our state and federal governments, because they keep chopping and changing and have different time schedules. So Annastacia Palaszczuk and Dominic Perrottet, two former premiers of Queensland and New South Wales, wouldn't agree on much politically. They agreed on this. They were both adamant that our short terms are holding us back. And it was one of the few things that Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton agreed on during the last election campaign. It's probably the only thing they agreed on.

Julia Bradley: And they have such big agendas when they come into government. So surely this would help.

Marty Gray: Absolutely. And we've talked so much about productivity in this country and how to drive it. In Australia, our GDP drops 0.5 per cent every election year, because every government department, every public servant, every business has to delay decisions, delay investments, waiting and waiting and waiting through the endless speculation for the prime minister to call an election. And if we move to four years with fixed dates, we really unlock that.

Julia Bradley: Well, it's food for thought. Marty Gray, thank you so much for joining me in the studio.

Marty Gray: Thanks, Julia. I really appreciate it.