I thought that could be done by amending the electoral act. It is the change to four year terms that would require a section 128 referendum.

One possibility would be petition recall like they have in America so that Parliament could be dissolved if was too unpopular (like NSW)

Oh god no. Then you’d have the Daily Telegraph deciding when the election was.

Government’s get elected even if they make stupid decisions from the perspective of some (Or even most) we have to deal with them. If they are “too unpopular” they will lose the election.

I live in NSW and I struggle to find anything good to say about the Government but I don’t think it’s the Zimbabwe-esque basket case both the Telegraph and the Herald are making it out to be. We’ll tough out poor decisions, go to the polls in a few years, elect the Coalition and the degradation of services will continue.

The circle of life.

An interesting part of the Federal Government’s plans to reform the electoral process is the idea floated by Senator Faulkner to have the entire Senate elected at each election. I think there’s a good case to be made for that, but that the chances of that happening are extremely slim.

Another idea I saw floated in the papers recently was the idea of having regular Constitutional Conventions (perhaps yearly) to discuss Constitutional change. I think this would allow good ideas for Constitutional change to be put forward and debated on the national stage at a regular basis. I think there’s a number of areas that Government’s really need to be pushed on in that front.