Carbon tax explained nice and simple

The big problem with the Emissions Trading Scheme proposed under Kevin Rudd was just how complicated it was to explain. A carbon tax was always going to be an easier sell. The Greens tried to get that point across to Rudd, but as we all learnt, Rudd was not one to listen to advise from outside his own little cartel.

So now Julia Gillard has done the politically pragmatic thing and agreed a way forward with the Greens that will work, and more importantly can be "sold" to the electorate. To demonstrate how easy that sell is, her own words from Question Time yesterday:
Ms GILLARD–Let me explain in detail our mechanism for pricing carbon. The first proposition is an incredibly simple one. At the moment carbon pollution can be released into the atmosphere for free. There is no disincentive for doing that. We will put a price on carbon, a price on every unit of carbon pollution. It will be paid for by businesses and as a result, because our business community is smart and adaptable and innovative, they will work out ways of pursuing their business and generating less carbon pollution. They will work out ways of making sure they pay less of a price when carbon is priced.

Then they will enter into contracts, they will make investments on the basis of understanding the rules and understanding that carbon will be priced. And as they go about making those transitions, innovating, making the new investments of the future, we will work with those businesses in transition to a clean economy.

Having priced carbon and seen that innovation, yes, there will be pricing impacts; that is absolutely right. That is the whole point: to make goods that are generated with more carbon pollution relatively more expensive than goods that are generated with less carbon pollution. But because we are a Labor government this will be done in a fair way. We will assist households as we transition with this new carbon price.

What that means is that people will walk into a shop with money in their pocket, the government having provided them with assistance. They will see the price signals on the shelves in front of them—things with less pollution, less expensive; things with more pollution, more expensive—and they too will adapt and change. They will choose the lower pollution products, which is exactly what we want them to do. Between the business investment and innovation, between households who have been assisted in a fair way by a Labor government responding to price signals, we will see a transition to a cleaner economy, to a low-pollution economy.
 
Grog's Gamut blog has gone into more depth very well, with his usual shredding of the pathetic spin by Tony Abbott's toy soldiers.
And let's not even get into SA Liberal Senator Mary-Jo Fisher's woeful carbon tax dance...
 
I highly recommend Grog's blog. Long posts, but worthwhile.