Mayor’s column: Four-year term referendum
Nick Smith, Mayor of Nelson. Photo: File.
A Bill was introduced to Parliament last week that would enable its term to be extended from three to four years. It was supported 117-6 with the National, Labour, ACT, Green and NZ First parties for it and only Te Pāti Māori against.
I have a strong interest in this issue as the Chair of Local Government New Zealand’s Electoral Reform Working Group. The terms of Parliament and councils should be aligned but elections kept separate. The ideal outcome would be for both to have four-year terms evenly spaced, i.e. a poll every two years alternating between local and national elections.
Any change must be decided by a referendum and made by electors, not the elected. This is to be true to the principles of Abraham Lincoln’s famous words that Government must be “of the people, by the people and for the people”. I would like the proposed referendum to ask voters their preferred term for both council and parliamentary elections.
I favour four years. Three is exceptionally short by international comparison. Of 190 parliaments around the world, 103 have five-year terms, 74 have four-year terms and nine have three-year terms. All Australian States have successfully switched from three to four years with New South Wales being the first to make the change in 1981 and Queensland being the last in 2016.
The biggest problem with a three-year term is that it is too short to sort any of the big challenges facing our country or communities. Issues such as economic development, infrastructure, housing, water quality or climate change require long-term thinking. New policies are often rushed because there is insufficient time to implement them more thoroughly.
The three-year cycle is also inefficient. Too much of the cycle is spent learning the role, setting up coalition or governance arrangements and electioneering. We need more time doing. I am this year at Council trying to constrain the campaign period until June to keep up productivity.
The Bill is now before Parliament’s Justice Committee with submissions open until 17 April 2025. There is no commitment to progress it unless there is public support. I encourage Nelsonians to have their say.