Australians must vote, but election dates remain a government secret. It's democracy with a twist of guesswork, writes GJ Burchall.
AWFULLY DECENT of the Federal Government to take us into its confidence and finally reveal when Australian voters may (must) go get their names crossed off and fulfil their “democratic” duty (vote).
The precious national secret was finally unveiled on 28 March 2025, once approval polls and the entrails of sacrificed chooks were considered.
The 3 May date, however, does not augur well, being the same one in 1979 that Margaret Thatcher began her reign of terror in Britain. But the announcement on 28 March was particularly apropos for Opposition Leader Peter “Nukes” Dutton, being the anniversary of Three Mile Island’s partial meltdown and contamination leak.
No-fixed-date elections are undemocratic. Why? Because if it’s compulsory that vote-age citizens must vote, then why shouldn’t it be compulsory for grown-up governments to give voters a permanent vote date? Why is this so problematic? It’s not like we’re back in high school asking for a date with the boss Mean Girl; we’re asking for a date to endorse or reject the current administration.
Say what you will about American politics (and we do): a felon can run for president and Elon Musk cannot; there are electoral “colleges” where the uneducated vote for the unelectable; and it has organised cabals that work to discourage, disenfranchise and block voters of targeted blocs.
Yet Americans go to the polls (well, less than 50 per cent of them do) on the second Tuesday in November every four years.
But Australia? Election dates are fluid. Furtive. Hush-hush. Anyone’s guess. They are held whenever the Government damn well pleases.
And so, from mid-2024, we get items like The Guardian reporting that:
‘[This] means Labor is preparing the way for an early election’
And the ABC noting:
‘[Labor is] pushing back against the notion of an early 2025 election’
Poll speculation is a popular indoor sport.
This country inherited the worst of the blissfully elitist electoral system of the British coloniser: pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey vote.
Last year, that strange nation’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (elected by his party, not by the people) went for an “early” election – happy summertime July: what could go wrong? – rather than wait until drizzly November, because chances were that economic woes would be worse. Result? Tory devastation. A landslide for class traitor Keir “sir” Starmer. Canada, with its new party-elected PM, has just announced a similar “snap” poll.
Australia was, proudly, the second nation in the world to introduce the secret ballot — it remains one of the last to have secret election dates.
The ALP was elected in May 2022, so the Government had life until sometime in 2025. But what is the concept of “snap” or “early” elections? What’s “premature”? Well, half the senators will reach their use-by dates in June, so the election needed to be before 17 May. However, House of Representative terms finish on 25 July and there needs to be an election within 68 days of their demise, so that could have strung us out to a date in September.
But for the Government, it’s always about go-when-ready or when-the-other-side-is-not.
Recall former PM Bob Hawke – landslide-elected in 1983 – called for another poll the very next year, to increase his majority (and ego).
Anyway, three years is an awfully truncated time to develop. A woman can deliver three children in that time. A toddler enjoys basic flexibility and has started to learn about numbers. In contrast, an Australian government of that same age has mastered the backflip but still struggles with basic economics.
Rarely does any government even see out its three years — the average is two and a bit. Given the first “settle-in” six months and the final “election mode” six months, what are we left with? Less government time than it would take to do a Leadership and Management TAFE course.
The thing with a set-date election is that the incumbent cannot change it (but the party can change the incumbent), outside extra-extraordinary circumstances, which do not include death (viz FDR, JFK, Curtin, Holt).
Most modern democracies (of which Australia is not yet one) hold fixed-date elections. This is so governments cannot take advantage of unusual electoral opportunities, cannot “go” anytime they deem fortuitous. And voters cannot say, “Sorry, we’re washing our hair that day” — because it is already marked in their diaries three years in advance.
A majority of Australian states can do fixed-date, including Victoria (last Saturday in November, every four years) and NSW (fourth Saturday in March, ditto). Even local governments can do them. Just not the callow Commonwealth.
There will not even need to be a referendum to secure fixed-date three-year terms, although one will be necessary if elections are switched to more sensible four or five-year tenancies.
After all, the Constitution was drafted when life expectancy was not so protracted (it clearly neglected to foresee modern Methuselahs such as “honest” John Howard).
The case for fixed-date terms: reduces the frequencies and expense of damn elections; allows government to concentrate on policy and actually doing things, rather than thinking about when next to fling themselves upon “the people”; and stops calls-to-election for purely political motives.
Against: citizens must suffer a very stupid government through to its “best before” expiry time.
Come the Republic, the Australian Constitution will need a serious tinker. Fixed-date terms of four or five years will no doubt feature.
Until then, let us howl at when-do-we-risk-it? Governments.“You are elected already. Respect the poll. Ride it out until your time is served. Haven’t we suffraged enough?”
Recall the campaign to save Tasmania’s wild Franklin River from a hydro scheme — voters took the opportunity to simply scrawl 'No Dams' across their ballot paper. Let’s do the same this year and boldly block-letter 'SET DATE' across all the pick-a-box tickets. That’ll show the swine.
GJ Burchall is a journalist, scriptwriter and educator who was born and bred in Melbourne and lives in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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