this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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Politics
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TIL Australia is not a sane democracy.
The difference is countries that vote for parties vs voting for an individual. I don't know why anyone would think one person would have the best interests of the country at heart.
Nor Canada.
Does any commonwealth country have that sort of term limits?
Not that I'm aware of? Technically the king/queen is head of state and that term is until death, can't get much longer than that.
Or abdication.
Technically, yes, but I was referring to the elected president/prime minister who is the head of the functional (as opposed to ceremonial) government.
Sanity doesn't create our system,
If the PM survives the voters, their Party dances them out, if the PM survives the Party, the PM resigns to spend more time with "family", if the PM survives the "family", the GG.... Kerrtails.
The PMs power at any given time can seem a bit Schroedinger's cat.
It probably depends how much fractional power and money is behind the PM. John Howard was PM for a decade after all.
@spiffmeister hah! Are you able to be president for more than 2 consecutive terms in peace time?
(I heard France doesn't prohibit more than two terms either, but they have to not be consecutive)
Well Australia doesn't have a president. But in theory there's nothing stopping someone from being prime minister for infinite time, provided their party doesn't stab them in the back or their party doesn't lose the election.
Is Sue Lines, the President of the Senate, a joke to you! For interest, they also have no set term limits.
@spiffmeister oh, I see. Well, technically, a prime-minister is a different thing, so you're right in this regard, but yeah, practically no one has been a prime minister for very long. It's a bit of a complicated thing
Agreed that PM is different, they don't weild the same power the US president does. But in terms of time, Robert Menzies was pm for a total of 18 years and John Howard was pm for 12, so you can be for a long time. Politics have just been much less stable in the last 20 years.