Senate kills the ETS

Taxpayers have been delivered safely from the ravenous clutches of Labor's emissions trading scheme (ETS) by a new united conservative force lead by new Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott. At 12:03 today the Senate adjourned after voting against the ETS.

Under the Constitution this event can now trigger a double-dissolution election, where both Houses of Parliament are dissolved completely, meaning that we would then go to the polls and vote for a full House of Representatives and also a full Senate instead of the normal full House and half Senate.

If the Government is returned to office after such an election they would present the ETS bill for a third time, in the House and then the Senate. If the bill failed to be passed by both Houses the third time then the Prime Minister would ask the Governor General to hold a joint sitting of both Houses to vote on the bill. A vote by a joint sitting on both Houses would then be final.

There have been only six double dissolutions of the Commonwealth Parliament. These occurred in 1914, 1951, 1974, 1975, 1983, and 1987. Only one of these lead to a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament, this being held by the Fraser Government in 1976 following the Constitutional Crisis of late 1975.

The question now is this: Does Kevin Rudd have the bottle to go ahead with a double dissolution of the Parliament, risking an election loss? History will be against the Liberal Party because more double dissolution elections have favoured Labor and Labor is currently ahead in the opinion polls. But nothing is ever certain in this game and whilst Kevin Rudd's failure to control the massive inflow of boat people and his excessive overseas travel hasn't hurt his personal 65% approval rating it could mean a loss of enough seats to either reduce his government's mandate or hang the Lower House, meaning that Labor would have to rely on Liberal to pass any legislation at all.

At the time of writing this, Labor seems to be carefully distancing itself from the trigger and is pleading with Liberal to help get the legislation through. Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard is in panic mode and obviously wants to avoid the snap election. As for Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, he's still on a plane, returning from a trip to the US.

Written at 14:07 on 2 December 2009 by Lord Watchdog.

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