Should there be a change of government, the Coalition’s pledge to repeal the carbon tax may see Australian voters heading back to the polls for a double dissolution election – with the Coalition looking increasingly likely to face a hostile Senate, therefore unable to repeal the Clean Energy Act in its own right. Should it fail, the Coalition has stated its intention to call a double dissolution election within five months – however analysis suggests that given constitutional complexities such a timeframe may be overly ambitious, with potential for the first double dissolution trigger to in fact occur 12 months after the federal election, not five.
