Extending Parliament to four-year terms: I’ll be voting yes, our politicians are too short-sighted - Ryan Bridge

THREE KEY FACTS

• The Government will shortly introduce legislation that would, if passed in a referendum, allow a future Government to extend the parliamentary term to four years if it chooses.
• However, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith acknowledged the coalition agreements only oblige the Government to support the idea to select committee stage.
• NZ voted against such a proposal in 1967 (68% wanted three years) and in 1990 (69% favoured the status quo).

I had a good chuckle yesterday at a Herald reader’s letter supporting a four-year parliamentary term – but only for a National-led Government. Labour should only get two years, they wrote.

This is why National MP Paul Goldsmith and Act leader David Seymour’s push to extend Parliament’s term will likely fail at a referendum for a third time, if indeed it makes it that far. Two-thirds of us said no thanks in 1967 and again in 1990.

The government bill announced this week to enable the option to change is based on a draft from the Act Party and, much like its Treaty Principles legislation, only has support from coalition partners to first reading. If it manages to survive beyond that, with potential support from across the aisle, it will struggle to survive a public vote.

If anything, appetite for longer terms may have diminished even further since the last vote. Three years of a powerful Labour majority exercising suffocating restrictions on personal liberty has made the public warier of giving the Beehive too much authority. Ruling the roost for an extra year might be a stretch.

It’s easy to imagine your preferred party governing for an extended period but you must also abide the unpleasantness of the opposite.

With more time between elections, public anger and frustration could grow to the point where politicians are paralysed from taking big, tough decisions anyway.

Or we could become like Britain, where they cycle through Prime Ministers like they’re going out of fashion. The Conservatives chewed through four leaders in a little over a term from 2019.

Most famously, Liz Truss lasted about as long as a rotting lettuce, but managed in short order to inflict significant damage on the British economy. Like a bull in a China shop, her Government proposed a $100 billion unfunded tax package, sending markets into meltdown. Things got so bad the Bank of England was about to stop its emergency bond-buying. Quite the disaster.

This situation came with its own unique set of circumstances, but the point is that the more often you change Prime Minister during a term of government, the less strategic and more chaotic that term becomes.

With fewer elections you run the risk of frustrating voters to the point where polls turn and leaders change anyway.

This is not to say there aren’t good reasons for extending to four years, but the question is whether the public will appreciate them.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the Government will introduce legislation that would, if passed in a referendum, allow a future government to extend the parliamentary term to four years if it chooses. Photo / Dean Purcell

There’s no doubt politics and politicians are currently far too short-sighted.

They spend one year getting in. One year doing work. Then another year focusing on getting elected again.

The bigger problem, though, is strategy and pay-off. Strategising with a three-year window means we don’t invest in as many big roading and rail projects as we should. It means we don’t bother with fixing productivity. Issues get put in the too-hard basket because there’s no pay-off before the next election.

And that’s the prize these guys are working towards.

Part of the reason China is a super power today – only 50-odd years after opening up to the world – is because it has centralised power. It’s a dictatorship. It has a very clear direction and very clear strategy. Beijing has the freedom to plan 30, 40, 50 years into the future with no pesky elections to worry about.

Now obviously we don’t want to go full autocracy here – but a little more time for a party in power would surely do more good than harm.

For these reasons I’ll be voting yes to four-year terms (should things progress that far) though I doubt they will. And if they do I’ll be voting in the minority.