When will he go?
It is not a question you would expect to be asked on the tenth anniversary of John Howard’s 1996 election win. (We have to wait until 11 March for his tenth anniversary as Prime Minister).
Even so, Centrebet has odds on the year John Howard’s Prime Ministerial reign will end:
- 2006 — $3.50 — (implied probability 24.8 per cent)
- 2007 — $2.30 — (37.7 per cent)
- 2008 — $3.50 — (24.8 per cent)
- Ends in 2009 or later — $6.75 — (12.8 per cent)
I am a little surprised at the odds for 2007. It is an election year and I cannot see Howard retiring before the election, or immediately after. To have it as the most likely year for Howard’s reign to end suggests the bookie thinks an election loss in 2007 is on the cards.
Update - 4 March at 8.00am
I was out of town yesterday and unable to update my regular graphs. As the commentators have noted, there was a bit of movement on Howard’s reign.
Also at Centrebet, Gerard Daffy had this to say (dated 3 March) …
John Howard has just completed 10 years in office and the market that we opened on Wednesday concerning when he would end his reign as PM has proven a good talking point.
It isn’t as simple as it looks. We have opened four options that the PM’s reign would end in 2006, 2007, 2008 or 2009 and beyond. The next election can be called as late as January 2008, and of course he could lose that election (for which the Coalition is 1.65) or he may chose to walk away at any time.
Judging from what he has said, as well as the experts in the media, the PM isn’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future so it was very surprising that the first wave of money came for him to end his reign this year. It wasn’t big wads of money by any means but it came at 6.00, 5.00 and 4.50 from a couple of regular political punters who we have a healthy respect for.
If they are correct, and Mr Howard does give it away this year, then the person who plonked $50,000 on the Coalition to win the next election would be feeling extremely nervous. Our take on things is that if Peter Costello were to take over at the Coalition, then Labor would be significantly shorter than the 2.10 currently on offer.