Senator BROWN (4:37 PM) —Once again I find myself agreeing with Senator Murray. The Greens worldwide have had long debates about rotation, that is, limitation of the terms of elected representatives. At one stage in Germany they closed it down to a two-year term. They found that was not such a wise idea because it did not give the incumbents time to really get used to office before they were facing the door out. That, of course, is a limitation that is too extreme. To use in reverse the argument that Senator Cooney has just been putting, the Americans with an elected President moved to change their constitution to limit the elected President to two terms. Here we have got a non-elected President, because the direct election option is not being given to the people of Australia, and we are saying that we should not limit that to two terms. I do not go along with that. I think that Presidents will certainly have varying degrees of popularity and some of them are going to be extremely popular, but that is not to say that at any given time in this nation there will not be a range of other extraordinarily accomplished and potentially very popular people as well.

I think the office of President is going to be one that will be greatly honoured by its incumbents and I think it is in the interests of the nation that at least every 10 years we allow another citizen to take that high office. To not do so is to move in the direction of stultification. By the way, as with the United States, those Presidents who have served their five- or 10-year term in office are going to be part of the group of elder statespeople, if you like, of the nation. They will continue to have their influence and they will continue to be honoured. But I think the moving aside once a decade for a new face is an extremely healthy thing, and I support this amendment.