You can tell how mature or immature a polity is by the way it deals with issues. In the instance of Australia and climate change, it seems our polity is not as mature as it should be. As Julia Gillard attempts for the third time to put a price on carbon, Tony Abbott and the Ostrich brigade have gone for a kind of scorched-earth school of PR to fight the legislation.
That is to say, when bad news comes your way, you really ought to man up about it and deal with rather than carry on like the problem doesn't exist or get angry that is a problem and it's going to cost you. It's so basic to life and living you'd think that people in their forties and over like most politicians would be able to deal with it as mature, adult human beings. Not the Liberal Party and National Party of this country it seems, and by extension a vocal minority of climate change deniers and assorted climate sceptics who all seem to have a direct line to shock jocks on talk back radio.
To outside observers, all of this looks irrational, which upon careful reflection it does to us rational people on the inside as well.
"The thing that struck me is how the debate has changed here and also that wide perception that I keep hearing that Australia shouldn't go first," she told reporters in Canberra today.
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"Coming from Europe, that sounds slightly bizarre because there are 30 countries in Europe that have had a carbon price ... since the beginning of 2005."
While reluctant to comment on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's campaign against a carbon tax, Ms Duggan pointed out how the British Conservative Party was enthusiastic about an ETS when in opposition.
"During the last Labour government, it wasn't Conservatives saying, 'You shouldn't be doing this,'" she said.
"They said, 'You should be doing more, you should be doing it faster.'"
Ms Duggan also dismissed suggestions that a carbon price would push up electricity prices dramatically, arguing higher oil and commodity prices accounted for three-quarters of the 40 per cent increase in power bills during the first year of an ETS in Britain.
Job losses were also minimal, with the European ETS creating service-sector jobs in Britain.
"I don't think we can think of any jobs losses that are the direct result of carbon policy," Ms Duggan said.
Ms Duggan not only headed Britain's work on international emissions trading and linking but has advised other governments on the European experience. She pointed to some design flaws in Europe's initial emissions scheme.
If you talk to any business head in Australia, you would find that they all accept that a price on carbon is a necessary step. If you ask farmers and the National Party demographic, they will tell you the opportunities available if carbon had a price. And yet, there's the Liberal Party jumping up and down to the tune of climate change Denialistas, which is a bit like running immigration policy in tune to racists (which, they do anyway). The point being, if the Liberal Party was meant to be representing the big business end of town, then surely they've got better things to be doing than carrying on like people who are in the first stage of grief - denial - upon finding out that man-made climate change is wreaking havoc on our economy already. None of it is exactly fresh news.
If Julia Gillard can pull this off with this hung Parliament and put through legislation for pricing carbon, I'd rescind my objections to her rise to the office of Prime Minister. It would be one admirable thing that her government would be doing for posterity. Tony Abbott's place in history might not be so rewarding, even if he successfully delays the carbon price.
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