Election predictions and the prospect for emissions trading
Pollytics Election Simulation April 5th 2010 (blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/)
Business planning for emissions trading in Australia has been challenging. The hope now is we’ll get some certainty with the next federal election.
If you’re looking for some insight into the outcome of the next election, the pollytics blog written by poll analyst Scott Steel is worth reading. He runs election simulations from the results of newspaper polling. He’s just published the results of his Q1 2010 simulation, which forecasts that Labour will be returned with a larger majority.
He also analyses the probabilities from the betting market. As of Friday the 9th, the implied probability of Labour winning the election is 74%.
What does this mean for the prospects of the emissions trading scheme starting on schedule? Labour is in power now but hasn’t been able to pass their CPRS legislation. Even with a larger majority in the Lower House, they will probably still need minor party support in the Senate. That is, unless they can call a joint-sitting of parliament.
Election guru Antony Green has recently published an article on the prospects of a double-dissolution election. The whole article is worth a read, but I’ll quote his conclusion:
“Political logic points to a double dissolution after July 1, most probably in August or early September. The Government has constitutional justification for a double dissolution, and is building up its political justification based on Senate obstructionism. It has the timing opportunity of holding a double dissolution without losing a year from its term and polls that gives it a chance to remake the Senate. All the logic points to the Rudd government taking its chance.”
There is still a lot of uncertainty and your business plans should consider a number of possible scenarios. However, there is a very real chance that emissions trading will be introduced on schedule, so if you are liable you should be well on your way to getting ready to go.
