Carbon tax legislation in parliament

Playford Power station in South Australia, likely to be closed under the new carbon pricing regime

The Federal Government received more than 300 submissions on the draft carbon tax legislation, the first bill of which has been introduced into the Parliament.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has introduced the first of 18 pieces of legislation which make up the carbon pricing regime, and the Government expects the package of legislation to be passed by both houses of Parliament by mid-November. The legislation is known as the Clean Energy Bill 2011.
The legislation established the fixed A$23 per tonne price on carbon pollution from mid-2012, with 40 percent of the revenue earmarked to compensate emissions-intensive, trade exposed industries. An emissions trading scheme will begin from 2015 with a floating price.
Around 500 polluting organisations will pay carbon tax, including entities which emit 25,000 tonnes or more of carbon poullution a year.
Gillard said the aim was for Australia to reduce emissions by 5 percent on 2000 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. This would take more than 17 billion tonnes of carbon pollution out of the atmosphere by 2050, the Prime Minister said. The government would also seek to close around 2000 megawatts of high polluting generation capacity by 2020.
She said Australia’s carbon price regime would not be applied to agricultural emissions, or landfill facilities which closed before July 1 this year.