Reuters first with news of ETS law defeat in Australia

Reuters’ had a one-hour beat against Bloomberg on Australia’s doomed emissions trading scheme (ETS) on August 13, due to its correspondents’ in-depth knowledge of the country’s political system. The long-awaited parliamentary vote was being keenly watched by Reuters clients around the globe because the ETS would have been the world’s most ambitious carbon trading scheme to see the light of day before the milestone climate talks in Copenhagen this December. The vote was crucial because, if passed, the ETS would cost $12 billion, and if defeated the government would be handed the first half of a trigger for a snap election. While the defeat of the ETS laws had been widely flagged, Reuters put to use knowledge of Australia`s parliamentary system to alert its defeat when the upper house Senate voted against a second reading of the legislation. This meant no final vote was possible. While competitors were still trying to understand the significance of the vote, Reuters went on to file a full story, a “what-happens-now” scenarios box and factboxes, setting out the ETS defeat and what it means for Australian business and politics.