Good for democracy

The near-consensus in Parliament for a four-year term means that a 75% majority should be available for it to be adopted without an expensive and pointless referendum (’ Hell of a rush to get stuff done’, Nov 12).

A four-year term would be enable unhurried change and better consultation, consensus building and lawmaking; and it would encourage better governance, with time to get things done and to implement them efficiently.

It would also be a whole lot cheaper (90% of countries have a four- or five-year term).

One trade-off should be a limitation on the number of terms any MP could serve: I suggest four (16 years).

Another would be to lower the party list threshold to 3%, to ensure better minority representation, and to limit the current semi-democratic binary Labour/ National system with its regular nineyear swings.

We must be able to do better than that. Denis O’Rourke, Christchurch