Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne issued this press release earlier in the week:

Oil price forecasts way off again: ABARE has egg on its face

27th May 2008

The former head of ABARE, Dr Brian Fisher, famously said that, if prices are high enough, roosters will lay eggs.

Australian Greens climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today said that ABARE now has egg all over its face after another woefully inaccurate oil price forecast, leaving the Australian community scrambling to deal with a fuel price crisis.

Senator Milne said, “At some point, ABARE must be held to account for its failure to model any scenario under which peak oil is a reality. Where other economic forecasters model a range of scenarios based on a range of assumptions, ABARE has consistently modelled with the same flawed assumptions, even though the evidence has shown them to be wrong time and again.

“ABARE’s current chief, Philip Glyde, as good as told today’s Estimates hearings that the results of his organisation’s modelling didn’t matter as long as the assumptions were in the public domain.