Good article.
The silly old fools have not explained how the alternate is better. Abbott's Plan is so poor if Gillard did call an election on the issue he would go straight into severe and irreversible panic. Abbot really should want for this policy to go through and probably does. He just wants to win some political mileage from opposing it but getting it done and out of the way now will result in a less controversial election. He will not repeal it as that could mean a double dissolution plus a Crikey article has raised the possibility of massive compensation claims if he did. He is playing opposition politics and not election politics. However if he is too successful he will have to explain his policy and the backlash would be career and political suicide. The carbon tax is safe.

@TheMissus: Abbott's Plan is so poor if Gillard did call an election on the issue he would go straight into severe and irreversible panic.

Really? If I thought that was the case I'd give the man more credit. The way I read him now, I'd say his reaction would be to bulldoze public opinion with bs. It's working pretty well against Gillard right now. Why change?

And even if you are right, do have a clue what he would actually do if elected? I don't. I tell myself he couldn't be seriously contemplating implementing some of the policies he champions right now. But what policies would he implement? I don't know. The man is opaque to me.

Climate change won't be solved with a negative attitude.
Neither will it be solved with a positive attitude.
Nature does what nature must do. Our attitudes are not in the equation.
I have no doubt that we contribute to a changing climate but there's sfa we can do about it.
Man has been polluting for millennia so if anyone thinks a tax all of a sudden will somehow prevent a climatic change then they have more rocks in their heads than you can find lying around the planet.
Stop wasting your money on Julia & Wayne's incompetence, Climate change is unavoidable. Even the Incas knew that 500 years ago.

This would'nt be a post by another Unley High Alumnus would it?
It just sounds so familiar.

Individual, Off topic as both sides have accepted climate science by committment to 5% reduction in emission by 2020. I understand many like you do not realise it is a choice between Liberal or Labor policy, not a choice which included no action atm.. So by saying forget Julia and Wayne you may not realise that translates to accepting Liberal policy which is so much more horrific. However, at the moment there is no debate on whether we have climate change or not or if what we do will help, it is about how we reach our obligations of 5% by 2020.

"both sides have accepted climate science by committment to 5% reduction in emission by 2020."

Both sides have been conned into believing that climate science is settled, when it is anything but settled. There is no compelling scientific evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the driver of dangerous global warming. Consequently, there is no scientific nor economic justification for maintaining the 5% reduction target. It was one of the Howard Govt's worst decisions. It would be in the national interest for both major parties to rescind the 5% reduction target.

Advantages (if you can call them that) of the Libs' policy are that, unlike the irrational carbon tax, its implementation would not cause massive damaging restructuring of the Australian economy, and that it can be abandoned simply at little cost.