With the ruling Labor Government clinging to power by what looks like being the barest of margins, some say voters have registered their protest at a government racing to the polls under the cover afforded by the Olympics. If that’s the case, the ALP may be in strife in Western Australia.

Voters in the West will go to the polls on September 6, after Premier Alan Carpenter called a snap election last week. That means the political debate in that state will effectively play second fiddle to the Olympics for more than half the election campaign. This is not a tactic a confident, capable or successful government would seek to employ, and Mr Carpenter risks a backlash from savvy voters who will take a dim view of such political manoeuvres.

The practice of ruling parties racing to the polls to avoid scrutiny and to deny opposition parties oxygen cannot occur in Victoria anymore, thanks to the former Bracks government implementing four-year terms shortly after it raced to the polls at the earliest possible moment in 2002.

Perhaps it is time the nation moved to fixed terms for all its elections. We already have it for local and state government in Victoria. Why not federally and in every other state as well?

What do you think?

Write a letter to the editor, or e-mail editor@bendigoadvertiser.com.au