And in more detail...

Australia needs electoral reform. The current three-year electoral cycle for members of the House of Representatives is not best serving the nation’s needs. It puts Canberra out of step with the states and territories, all of which have four-year election cycles. Indeed, many countries with a two-chamber parliamentary system like ours have a four or five-year parliamentary cycle. Aside from Australia, only Mexico and the Philippines have a three-year cycle.

In 2004, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended extending Australia’s federal parliamentary term to four years. The recommendation received bipartisan support, but Parliament didn’t act.

There are good reasons to adopt this longer term. The obvious one is to end the short-term thinking that seems to pervade government decision-making. The problems confronting Australia, domestically and internationally, require major strategic policy shifts rather than occasional tweaking. Hard decisions need to be made, but when the government of the day constantly has one eye on an election that always seems to be looming, potentially effective policies get watered down or shelved when focus groups exhume unfavourable voter responses.

Proponents of a longer parliamentary term argue that there would be benefits to business confidence and significant cost savings to taxpayers, given the expense of staging elections.

And then there is avoiding voter apathy, which is heightened by frequent elections.

The reason we have a three-year term for MPs in Australia is purely historical — the colonies that made up Australia before federation all ran on three-year cycles.

The emotional reason for continuing with a federal election every 36 months is cynical — that politicians will get too comfortable if they’re given four years in the seats. The reality, though, in this age of slim margins, governments are seemingly on a constant knife-edge and rarely go the distance.

The Good Party believes in long-term thinking and wholly supports the adoption of a fixed four-year term for the House of Representatives (senators have a 6-year term, unless the Senate is dissolved). When the government of the day governs well and has either a majority in the house or solid support from the crossbench, it should be given the time and the opportunity to build on good policy decision-making.

The reason we have a three-year term in Australia is purely historical — the colonies that made up Australia before federation all ran on three-year cycles

Attracting the best people to manage and run the biggest business in Australia — Australia itself

Australia’s revenue dwarfs the income of the largest companies on the ASX. Yet can we honestly say we have the best people managing this gargantuan business?

The Prime Minister of Australia earns $ 549,000 per year. Back-bench members and senators earn $211,000.00. That might seem like a lot of money to many Australians, but in the upper echelons of the corporate world, the pay rate for politicians is meagre.

Advocating for more money to pay politicians would attract considerable derision because Australians largely believe their politicians have little worth. But, ironically, that’s precisely why more money must be put on the table. We need to improve the calibre of political party candidates, and the business of running this country is competing with industry for the best minds and talents.

While service to the nation must be the prime motivation for entering politics, not money, insufficient remuneration shouldn’t limit the quality and diversity of potential MPs.

The Remuneration Tribunal, an independent statutory body, oversees the remuneration of federal politicians. The Tribunal’s brief should consider the competitive reality of the available talent pool when reviewing politicians' salaries next.

Sixteen is the new eighteen

Our children are growing up faster. Their access to information is staggering. Today's young minds are being stimulated in ways never imagined, even twenty years ago. Many teenage Australians are now fully aware of the intricacies of the environment, conservation concerns, the constantly evolving employment market they’ll soon be entering, and other issues that'll affect their lives.

Many young Australians are now fully aware of the intricacies of the environment, conservation concerns, the constantly mutating employment market they’ll soon be entering, and other issues that will affect their lives

At just 15, Greta Thunberg admonished the world’s most powerful leaders on their reluctance to truly and honestly address the unfolding catastrophe of climate change. She is the voice of a generation aware that it will soon inherit a world riddled with problems, not of its making, that pose an existential risk to life on our planet. The Good Party aims to give young Australians concerned about the future they will inherit more say in shaping that future by extending to them the right to vote. And because many other teens have little interest in these weighty issues, we want that right to be voluntary. Our proposal is simply that 16 and 17-year-olds be allowed to vote in federal elections, should they choose to do so, by entering their names in the electoral roll with an age-related asterisk. Then, of course, once they turn 18, voluntary voting in the federal election becomes compulsory.

Formalising the National Cabinet

Today, many pressing challenges facing the nation transcend the boundaries of governance established by the Constitution of Australia. Climate change, for example, needs to be battled and managed by federal and state government departments.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the establishment of a national cabinet, where the prime minister and cabinet ministers could meet with state premiers and coordinate a whole-of-Australia government response to the emergency.

Other pressing national issues, such as water policy, would be well served and potentially sorted through cooperation between all levels of government by a National Cabinet. The Good Party would formalize the existence of this excellent collaborative instrument through at least biannual meetings.