Hooray for Julia, Finally we have some real action on climate change. The Gillard government has lain to rest any doubt that we need to cut poisonous CO2 emissions from our atmosphere, penalize emitters and to enter the brave new world of carbon trading with the rest of the world.

Industry will at last get the certainty they need to invest, financiers will get the certainty they need to finance our industries, we can avoid the backlash from the rest of the developed world for not cutting as much carbon as them and more importantly, we can avoid the huge future costs of climate change by investing at a much smaller cost now.

Whilst noted for well endowed posterior proportions, is our PM actually trying to ride two horses with one rear end?

spindoc,
Yeah, what else did you expect. Hit the workers again because they're the ones in industry. The bureaucrates & academics don't apparently contribute to pollution. They'r just innocently using transport & buy commodities the production of which caused pollution by the manufacturers.
I'm sure the executive jets don't cause pollution neither do the armed forces. Why have this selective penalty when indeed everyone's a polluter ? Does pollution reduce with the amount of penalty one can afford ?

Pollution will decrease with the amount one can afford. Thats about the most sensible thing i have seen you write.
We need the tax to push the no carbon age along.
manufactured without carbon will be a gigantic sales pitch. There will be a race on to get the claim first, and not have to pay the pollution tax.

a597,
So, if a tax, Penalty , levy or deposit if you like, reduces pollution then South australia is the only State that has taken a step towards pollution with their plastic bottle deposit.
Am I wrong in saying then that most of Australia is way behind in doing something about pollution ? Will Air transport only fly with full planes, or will people buy slightly damaged fruit to reduce transport emission ? Will the armed forces reduce their emission rich exercises ? Will the sport of motor racing be phased out ? Will mobile phone chargers become combaitble to reduce the senseless multiple production of the same appliance ? That, a597 is where the pollution is.

Everybody is a polluter, is it necessary to have a TV in every room.
This is exactly what we want, to inspire innovation, to come up with alternate fuels, and get of the oil based products.
We need. A tv license for tv's in excess of one. A carbon fuel tax.
A tax for every kw of power in excess of 12kw / day. People need to be taxed to stop the greed. We have a consumer mentality, which needs to be changed. Most of these consumables are imported so it will not hurt AU. Julia is doing very well, under a coalition that wants to bring the country down.

Pensioners will freeze as the academic left fly off to meetings to slap each other on the back. What a con.