The Westminster System is woeful in stopping incumbency. The British system has parties stay in power for close to a quarter of a century at a time, in Australia the churn rate is greater but party's remain in power often for a decade at a time. This is a failing of the Westminster system, if Australia is to persist with a parliamentary system, term limits need to be introduced to increase the churn rate of the elected representatives in order to protect against incumbency, corruption and nepotism.

Poll : Best device to increase the churn-rate?

The State of the System

Since World War II and the change over from the states being the first government to tax income to the federal government getting first lick of the pie, parties have managed to remain in power for overly long period. While not as long as parties have been able to remain in government in the United Kingdom, Australian parties have still managed to average over three terms.

As an example of how static the Australian Westminster is, this is the periods in years parties have held government starting in 1942 ;

• Labor, 7 years (1942-1949)
• Liberal, 23 years (1949-1972)
• Labor, 3 years (1972-1975)
• Liberal, 8 years (1975-1983)
• Labor, 13 years (1983-1996)
• Liberal, 8 years (1996-

If we look at the number of Prime Ministers that were removed by a general election the stagnation and concentration of power in the Westminster system is even worse. Of the thirteen Australian Prime Ministers since 1942, only four have been removed by an election.

• Curtin - died in office
• Forde - removed by party
• Chifley - defeated at general election
• Menzies - retired
• Holt - died in office
• Gorton - removed by no confidence vote
• Whitlam - removed by Governor-General
• Fraser - defeated at general election
• Hawke - removed by party
• Keating - defeated at general election
• Howard - still in government

The defeats that have come at general election have all been "drovers dog" election where the local three-legged cattle-dog could have beaten the incumbent government. This has led to a "waitocracy" in Australian government where opposition leaders either entrench their position in an effort to wait out the current government until their is a drovers dog election.

John Howard has often been held up for his tenaciousness in returning to the leadership of the opposition party when the Hawke and Keating governments were in power. Commonly called, "Lazarus on a triple bypass". Howard's career is a good example of the waitocracy in action. Howard managed to hang around in the leadership position long enough for the drovers dog election of 1996 to come around. Keating was seen as too arrogant and out of touch with the electorate.

If Latham entrenches himself in the opposition as well as Howard did, he will get a chance to be Prime Minister, not because of his - or his party's - abilities, but rather because the incumbent government will exhaust itself on its own power and offer a "drovers dog" election to the people where they will be seen with not having a choice for the incumbent.

Inertia To Change

Humans are adverse to change in the larger aspects of life. Humanity attempts to control its environment as an outlet of this larger aversion to change and the desire for stability. This is completely understandable given the volatile nature of modern life, modern employment and fiscal security. Add the ongoing fear campaigns by government, the media and terrorist groups - the desire for stability is entirely accepted.

In political systems this acquiescence to the appearance of stability often leads to corrupted individual hijacking a democratic system with clear separation of powers into a dictatorship with absolute rule collapsed to a singular person. The current changes in Russia under the arm-twisting of Vladimir Putin is a good example of this. Another is the manner in which Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan has managed to suspend the constitution to support his desire for absolute power.

In democracies the system is set up to balance the negative passions of humans through the principle of the separation of powers (a principle Joh Bjelke-Peterson was oblivious to when questioned by a judge). Even though this is a defence against a dictator, it is not a perfect defence and through the manipulation of other negative passions and appeals to the people's desire for stability, diffuse power can collapse into absolute power for an individual.

One of the purposes of a written and explicit constitution is to have the stability of the democracy not be personified into an individual but rather into the system itself. Leaders of the Executive Cabinet (Prime Ministers) enjoy pursuing the position as celebrity and use the trivial reporting of the news media to entrench themselves further and further into power. There is no need to seek stability through a Prime Minister remaining in the position for long periods.

Deciding Limits

From a subjective point of view governments tend to exhaust themselves after about eight years. This is also the period where the government, and the leaders start to fall into the traps of power such as corruption, abuse and nepotism. In NSW, the Bob Carr government after a long tenure has corruption allegations levelled against it that were sufficient enough for ICAC to visit the issue. Despite the Howard government's re-election there are still issues surrounding the federal government's abuse of power that have to be resolved.

To minimize this entropy that governments display, it is fitting to forcibly retire the head of the Executive Cabinet (Prime Minister and Premier) from parliament (or the assembly) after six years. This is two election periods and more than enough time for the leader of a government to have an effect in the position.

Another natural period of tenure is the generation. This is often construed to be twenty-five years. Elected officials in parliament who create legislation require specialist knowledge in legislative law. Due to party discipline most of these decisions are carried out by the Executive Cabinet, but as back-benchers move to the front-bench and possibly to lead the party then a long enough period for the specialist skills to be developed is necessary.

The period of a generation is suitably long for the specialist skills of legislation to be developed. After this period an elected official should be forced to retire by the constitution. This will be effective in putting an end to the benefits of incumbency, and has been the case of some elected officials in the US Congress, almost dying on the job. A generation is half a working lifetime, and more than enough for an elected official to make their mark on the government, serve the polity, the electorate and the common good.

Protecting Against the Rules Being Bent

Another truism of politicians is that they will bend the rules to n th degree in order to satiate their personal desire for power. In the case of the head of the Executive Cabinet being forced to retire from the position, there is the possibility that the Prime Minister would leave the position before the six years is up and hand over the party to another representative. Effectively skipping the forced retirement to remain in parliament on the front or back bench.

This would require some additional explicit language in the constitution to protect against officials weaselling out of the intent for term limiting the position. To solve this, the Prime Minister would need to be recognized in the constitution as the formative holder of Executive power. Once the Prime Minister leaves the position they will be required to retire from parliament.

Being Prime Minister is the summit of Australian political achievement, forcing retirement from parliament with the handing over of the position would not detract from that achievement. Another reason to force the Prime Minister to retire from parliament after the relinquish the position is to stop a former Prime Minister going to the back-bench just before being forcibly term-limited and staying in parliament until their twenty-five years is up.

Fixed Term Elections

A final, and the most important change in increasing the churn-rate is the implementation of fixed term elections. Supposedly governments sit for three years before an election but all governments in the Australian system constantly call early elections. The Howard Government is in its fourth term in eight years. The incumbent constantly calls elections as soon as they can, and as soon as they see electoral advantage in doing so. It is a sham.

The government should be given three years (1068 days) between each election unless there is a double dissolution election. Having fixed term elections would be the greatest benefit to democracy and the greatest challenge to the power of incumbency. Three years is more than enough for a government, there is little point in giving a government four years between periods as the they have been calling election every two and bit years anyway. Three years is enough.

Supposedly the Labor Party lacks vision, leadership and an ability to engage the community. This is touchy feely garbage which ignores the realities of our Westminster forms of government and the interaction of the media with both the government and opposition. If Labor wants to get in faster they should wish for a recession, or alternatively make some sensible democratic choices such as term limits on the Executive and fixed term elections.

Natural Party of Government

The term, or the concern that a party is becoming the natural party of government is journalistic and partisan hubris. Also the notion that the so-called left, or the so-called right are in disarray and permanent chaos is also hubris. The Westminster system gives undue power to the Executive, which is informally invested in the Prime Minister. Incumbency is the biggest differentiator in an election - the churn rate is exceptionally low. Prime Ministers are more likely to lose their position to something other than an election.

When the Liberals under Menzies dominated parliament for twenty three years, there was the assumption that Labor was permanently unfavoured by the electorate. This ignored Menzies ability to wedge at election time, as well as the effect of Democratic Labor Party. It also ignores the work of the post-Menzies governments of Holt, Gorton and McMahon in modernising the pre-1950s policies and world-view of the Menzies government.

We then had Whitlam come in with a revolutionary zeal, and fall to both an incompetent cabinet before the bunyip aristocracy reclaimed "their" government through the Governor-General. If Whitlam's time in government shows anything, it is that external economic factors, as well as an opposition who has been too long out of power are damaging for an aspiring government. Then we get Fraser again, who applied 1960s economic principle to an economy that was on the edge of booming into the information age.

The common folklore over Fraser losing the 1983 election was that it was a "drover's dog" election where the local drover could have put his dog up for election and beating Fraser. But was it? Bill Hayden, who announced he was going to step down as Labor, commented;

Fraser meanwhile, had made the most disastrous decision of his whole political career. He rushed out to Government House, without a prior appointment being made, to call a double dissolution. If only he had waited, the course of our political history might well have been quite different, something he has acknowledged to me in private conversation.

The media then made sure the Liberals were in permanent disarray, running through Peacock, Howard, Peacock, Downer, Howard, Hewson, to Howard again. Labor with the power of government fell in behind the Prime Minister, until Keating decided to make a claim for the position. I recall that there was mention of Labor being the natural party of government since they obviously understood economic reform better than previous Liberal governments. And now we have the Liberals ten years in. The slow oscillation of Westminster government continues with all the advantages that incumbency offers.

The states are no different. They are all multi-term Labor governments. The closest thing to term limits the States have is NSW's ICAC. It ousted Greiner and probably weighed in on Carr's decision to retire from the Premier position.

The Waitocracy

John Howard and Kim Beazley are the same politician. They are both products of the Australian waitocracy. Howard has been remarked upon as lazarus with a triple bypass because he survived several leadership changes before becoming Prime Minister. The lesson there is that winning elections is the only thing that gives a party leader any legitimacy and authority under our present system. Howard was as much in the wilderness between 1983 and 1996, as Beazley is now.

Both pursue small target political campaigns. Howard was fortunate that Keating didn't have a Tampa or 911 in 1996 that he could whip the electorate into a frenzy about. All government's have used the power of government and the public purse to wedge, discredit and politically isolate their opponents. The Howard government is currently using taxpayer dollars to sell a policy that was not formalised legislatively until recently, and will most likely come into constitutional contention. But this is not unique for an Australian government. Taxpayer dollars have been purloined all through Australian history to attack oppositions.

There is no natural party of government, there is only incumbency. This is the best indicator of past and future election performance. We participate in a system of slow oscillation, that rewards those already in power, not only with ongoing terms, but an entropy of all power toward the centre. The Westminster is not a strong system. It is weak in checks and balances, and needs procedural additions to protect democracy.

There needs to be, at the minimum, the addition of;

• Fixed term elections.
• Term limits on the Prime Minister and Premier positions.
• Citizen Auditors.

This will be a start in defeating the waitocracy.

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The Robson Rotation is an electoral technology used in Tasmania which jumbles the order of the candidates within a party grouping on the ballot paper. it was developed as a challenge to the donkey vote, effectively dampening any skewing of the vote by voters ticking off the first five in the list. Does the Robson Rotation affect incumbency?

I took the years a member has served between 1946 and 1980 which is prior to the introduction of the Robson Rotation. I also took the number of years a member has served since 1980. I then averaged the years over the number of members.

Despite this clunky method, it appears that all average number of years a member serves since the introduction of the Robson Rotation is less for all electorates in Tasmania.

Does the Robson Rotation increase the churn rate and reduce incumbency? There appears to be some correlation that it does.

Peter Martin writes on the political process of the Charter of Budget Honesty which means the Government can have a good look through the Opposition's (not minor parties) economic plans.

From the article:

It can only be done after a writ is issued for the election. This itself can happen up to ten days after the Prime Minister visits the Governor General to request the election. So it is pretty late in the piece.

It has to be done through the Prime Minister. Yes, through the Prime Minister. That doesn't cause much anguish for the government. It can submit its policies for costing through PM confident they won't leak.

But the Opposition has to submit them "through" the Prime Minister as well. As the handbook says: "Secretaries are not obliged or authorised to take action in relation to any request unless the Prime Minister has referred the request to them."

There's no requirement for the request to be in a sealed envelope. The Prime Minister (John Howard at the moment) gets to read everything that the Opposition sends for costing, even though during the so-called caretaker period he is not able to direct Treasury and Finance in how to do the costings.

It doesn't end there. Good to see one journalist is writing about these sort of imbalances toward incumbency when others are more interested in horse race politics and ignoring the statistical nature of polls.

If this had any public scrutiny and wider public awareness it would lose legitimacy immediately. No rational person could consider that process fair.