Australia passes major pollution tax measures

AUSTRALIA’S parliament approved a controversial pollution tax yesterday, after years of bitter debate over the reform which is aimed at lowering carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

Cheers and applause broke out as the upper house Senate passed the Clean Energy Act, requiring Australia’s coal-fired power stations and other major emitters to “pay to pollute” from July 1 next year.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said it was the culmination of a “quarter of a century of scientific warnings, 37 parliamentary inquiries and years of bitter debate and division”.