As Australia heads to the polls this weekend, Bill Brown and Joshua Black argue the timing of elections should be fixed.

Complaints about the brevity of three-year parliamentary terms are common in Australia.

Earlier this year, Business Council of Australia president Geoff Culbert told the AFR that Australia is “permanently in election mode” and our three-year term limits are “too short”.

The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader both say they support four-year terms, though they’re not willing to chance their arm on a constitutional referendum to make it happen.

In the last 25 years, Australia has had eight (soon to be nine) federal elections. If that sounds like heavy going, spare a thought for generations past. From 1950 to 1975, Australians voted in 15 federal elections, including four separate half-Senate elections.

This is to say nothing of the four separate referendums held between 1950 and 1975, compared with just one in the period from 2000 to 2025.

When Gough Whitlam joked that he was enjoying a rare “non-election year” back in 1985, he had a........

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