There's one there already, actually.
Sorry I'd missed it. No worries.
Am I mistaken, or is there a way for the Premier to get around a fixed date?
The fixed date is only an upper bound on the length of an assembly, a legislative defence against one overstaying its due. Its only significance is that the date of the next election is set out in advance - second Tuesday in May four years from the last. The premier can at any time drive over to the lieutenant-governor and ask for dissolution.
I see that Australians actually have assemblies with a fixed term! That explains the bloodbath of Australia's state Labor parties somewhat.
Speaking of the BC Conservatives, I forgot to post this poll that shows them in the high teens again. The last time the party polled 18% was in December 2009, at the beginning of the HST debacle.
I gotcha - it's a maximum term limit (not the US Presidential use of the phrase, obviously). Some Australian states have a completely fixed term (as you note) while others do not - they have the same sort of thing as BC evidently uses. Federally we also have the same, based on time elapsed since the first sitting of Parliament. Queensland and Federal are three-year terms, all other states and I think territories are four year terms - some fixed, some with a maximum end date only. Victoria and New South Wales both have fixed terms with an election date set in stone (although that said, Victoria has a loophole allowing an earlier election, but it's rather complex and involves blocked legislation and the "Disputes Resolution Committee" and various other requirements, and is similar in concept to a federal Double Dissolution - although given the entire Victorian Upper House is elected at each election, the reduced quota that occurs under a Double Dissolution is not a by-product). The other states and territories... I don't know... Western Australia had an early election last time (triggered by a change in the Opposition Leader and thus the Premier thinking he had an opportunity to catch the opposition off guard... except people saw it as being opportunistic and consequently a fairly strong swing was picked up in the polls in the first couple of weeks of the election campaign and the government changed hands in a very close election) - anyway, WA had an early election last time, so it must have had an "end date" rather than a fixed date back then, but there may have been changes to the Electoral Act since then. Interestingly - our electoral methods are set in an Act of Parliament, rather than in the Constitution, so do not require a referendum to change (I bring this up due to the referendum held in BC on voting method - or, of course, the AV Referendum in the UK - for us to change our voting method, it would only require the passage of a bill amending the Electoral Act through the Parliament - as was the case in Victoria after Labor's historic win in 2002, where the Upper House was reformed substantially... although this thread is not the place to discuss that).
