Australia’s new PM to scrap carbon tax

Australia’s new government prepared to take control of the nation yesterday, with prime minister-elect Tony Abbott vowing to immediately scrap a hated tax on carbon polluters and implement a controversial plan to stop asylum seekers from reaching the nation’s shores.

Abbott met with bureaucrats to go over his border security plans and said his first priority would be to repeal the deeply unpopular carbon tax on Australia’s biggest industrial polluters.

His conservative Liberal party-led coalition won a crushing victory in elections on Saturday against the centre-left Labour Party, which had ruled for six years, including during the turbulent global financial crisis.