Mike's Minute: The good and the bad of a 4-year term

I would have thought the timing could not be more awkward. 

If you broadly accept the current narrative that this Government is working awfully hard to get us out of the massive economic hole left to it by the previous Government, and if you accept that the previous Government was one of the worst in living memory, then just imagine where we would be if that hopeless lot of 2020-2023 had actually been rampaging across the countryside until last year because they had had a four-year term. 

Surely it's that cold, present, still-throbbing reality that prevents a discussion on a four-year term going much further. 

A lot of politicians seem to want one, and who can blame them? There is logic to what they argue. 

In year one you arrive in your office, introduce yourself to everyone, put a few press releases out and start the spade work. 

In year two you go for broke because year three is written off in campaign mode. 

As Britain is discovering, five years is an awfully long time and until they changed the law about calling early elections, they got into a nasty habit of calling early elections because five years tended to exhaust them, and various calamities would present themselves with the only exit strategy being a vote. 

So, if you're following the logic three years isn't enough and five is too long. So four years is goldilocks.   

Or is it? 

David Seymour is a fan of four years. He argued that most countries have longer terms and there are very few countries with three years. 

There are also very few countries that balance their budgets or pay down their debt. That doesn’t make it good. 

What is good is his admission that the gerrymandered shambles he offered up as a twist on an extended term with committees and numbers will never see the light of day. 

It's taken us 25 years to get our head around MMP. The Seymour version of an extended term has a half-life of eight million years. 

So, four or not? My gut says it will get to be a thing. Change is coming. 

But here's a small warning: time isn't the issue. It's quality. Time doesn’t bring talent, or skill, or insight, or dedication, professionalism, or success. It just brings time. 

The rest is what we should be way more concerned about. 

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