http://www.theworld.org/2011/03/australia-carbon-tax-fight/

Last August, Australia’s new Labor party leader Julia Gillard ran
for office promising that she had no intention of pursuing a carbon tax. But
that was before she became Prime Minister, and before a multi-party government
commission endorsed a carbon tax as part of a long term plan to make markets
account for the costs of climate pollution.

Gillard now said that if Australia’s coal-dependent economy doesn’t change, it
will be left behind.

“We’ve got a big journey of transformation,” Gillard said. “We need to start on
that journey now. We cannot afford to wake up down the track with a high carbon
pollution economy when the rest of the world has moved, and then try in some
huge rush to transform our economy.”

Gillard said putting a price on carbon is the most efficient way to start that
transformation now. But her about face has led to angry exchanges in Parliament
this month between members of the Labor government and its conservative
opponents, known here as the Liberals. And it is a reminder of how even as the
ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan is calling into question the viability of
nuclear power as a partial solution to climate change, many political responses
to the climate challenge continue to have a tough time getting traction as well.