Australia’s Senate rejects Emissions Trading Scheme

Following the election of Tony Abbott as new leader for the opposition Liberal party in Australia, the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme has been postponed after rejection by the upper of the two houses of the Parliament.

This is a $120-billion tax on the Australian public and that is just for starters. We have heard from the Independent Pricing Regulator in NSW just yesterday that this ETS would add 30 per cent to the people of NSW’s power bills… I am not frightened of an election on this issue, because as far as many, many millions of Australians are concerned, what the Rudd Government’s ETS looks like is a great big tax to create a great big slush fund to provide politicised hand outs by a giant bureaucracy. - Tony Abbott