Odds Firm For Third Year of Fixed Carbon Price

Ten days into the federal election campaign it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. The honeymoon appears to be over for Kevin Rudd and the Australian Labor Party, with the Coalition registering an increase in support across most major opinion polls since the start of August, however data continues to suggest that the left wing vote has stabilised at a high enough level to maintain the government’s numbers in the Senate – and those of the Greens – meaning that the third year of the government’s Carbon Price Mechanism is likely here to stay. In this Market Update we review our electoral model to account for new national polling in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, with outputs feeding into our updated political probabilities and expectations for the shape of carbon pricing policy in Australia.