Analysis by Keith Rankin, 19 February 2026
The RNZ news bulletin of 10pm on 18 February stated: “New Zealand and Australia are outliers in having three-year parliamentary terms, with four or five year terms far more common … politicians have over the years expressed frustration at how much can be achieved in a three-year cycle.”
This is a common but not really valid belief. This year the world’s second largest democracy – United States of America – is holding its election for its House of Representatives. That country has – and has had – a stable two-year term. For some reason it is never mentioned in these discussions.
Below is a table showing average term lengths for comparator countries. We note that in countries with flexible electoral terms, which is all of these except United States, it is commonly only the more unpopular governments which go full-term.
| Country | Average | Average |
| since 2010 | since 1950 | |
| India | 5.0 | 4.2 |
| Italy | 4.5 | 4.1 |
| Ireland | 4.3 | 3.7 |
| France | 4.0 | 4.1 |
| Germany | 4.0 | 3.8 |
| Sweden | 4.0 | 3.4 |
| UK | 3.5 | 3.7 |
| Canada | 3.5 | 3.1 |
| New Zealand | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| Australia | 3.0 | 2.6 |
| Japan | 2.8 | 2.8 |
| USA | 2.0 | 2.0 |
We note in particular that elections in the United Kingdom have been on average 3.7 years apart, despite that country having a five-year term limit. And that that country presently has a governing party for which popular support, as consistently measured by opinion polls, has so far registered below 20% for much of the so far short life of its rule. The fact that the likely date for the next election is more than three years away is a major source of political instability there.
Most importantly, in the table above, New Zealand is not an outlier.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/28/keith-rankin-analysis-parliamentary-term-length-is-new-zealand-really-an-outlier/