Pundit

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Floating the idea of a four year term

Revisiting a discussion about the length of parliamentary terms

So political consensus was in the air at Waitangi this year... at least around a four year parliamentary term. Q+A revealed that most parties were in agreement on this at the end of last year and I wrote about it then.

While many New Zealanders' instinctual dislike of politics and politicians could make this a high hurdle to clear – and has done twice in the past when it's been unsuccessfully attempted – our embrace of MMP shows we can get our heads around these sorts of constitutional issues. We are out of step with most other democracies and when Winston Peters, Metiria Turei and Peter Dunne agree on something and are willing to act in concert, it's at least worth a look!

The panel reviewing our constitutional bits and pieces will report on this later in the year, but I thought it was worth reviewing my previous post, as in the thread Jon Johansson wrote about a discussion he had with the PM and offered some sage thoughts, while Andrew Geddis offered his wisdom and made a prediction. So it's worth a revisit here.