Action

Australia is sometimes criticised as having a "small island" mentality; despite spanning over 7 million kilometres and hosting a population of over 22 million people. Australian politics since the Howard era has been characterised by a reluctance to embrace change, a fear of Australia's ever-vulnerable borders being breached and a reluctance to let go of the coal-mining, land-dependent image of the Aussie battler.

Despite students and the unemployed emerging from the Global Financial Crisis with $900 worth of stimulating spending money and the rest of the continent left relatively unscathed, Australia hangs on to the "times are tough" mentality - responding with hysteria to pricing carbon, hysteria to asylum seekers travelling by boat and slowly shifting denial to the realities of climate change.

Globally, Australia is comparatively doing fine. We don't have thousands packed in protest in one of our busiest streets. Nor do we have unemployment at a devastating 9%. We don't have widespread unease and violence, nor do we have an immanent fresh water crisis with no long term solution.

BANYULE AND NILLUMBIK reports: Eltham resident Marguerite Marshall is a member of Beyond Zero Emissions, which campaigns for action on climate change. She was trained by Al Gore last year to advocate about the issue.

I came to Eltham in 1979 as a young married woman. I brought up my two daughters here. I’ve been an activist for 35 years. I’ve been a member of the Australian Conservation Foundation most of my adult life.

I’ve been a public speaker on the environment for about 16 years. I was passionate and I read about it. I devised my own presentation about how to be environmentally conscious in your own life.

I’m also a Christian and I’m involved in the Uniting Church in Greensborough. We’ve been brought up to care about God’s planet, and to help the world’s poor, since climate change is going to impact most upon the world’s poorest.

I became involved in Beyond Zero last year. We are a group of volunteers who are passionate about solving the climate problem. We are focusing on the Zero Carbon Australia plan, developed with Melbourne University’s Melbourne Energy Institute, to turn Australia into a carbon-neutral country within 10 years.

THE SOUTHERN HIGHLAND NEWS reports: ONE HUNDRED locals met at Kazcare in Bowral yesterday for the 'Climate Action Now, Wingecarribee' workshop to discuss the future of clean energy in the area.

CLIMATE SPECTATOR reports:A decade after it was first seriously discussed in Australian politics, and on its fourth attempt to make its way through a hostile parliament, Australian is now poised to finally implement a carbon pricing regime.

The passage of 19 bills through the House of Representative on Wednesday, propelled and finally approved by two country independents and a single Greens member, means that the passing into law of Clean Energy Future package is now a mere formality, as the government and the Greens have the numbers in the Senate.

There is no doubt that this signals the start of one of the greatest transformations of the Australian economy, ranking alongside the floating of the currency, the introduction of the GST and other major policy initiatives. But will this transformation be sudden and dramatic, or will it be a slow burn? Climate Spectator asked leading business people, advisors, politicians and lobbyists for their take. This is what they said: