Boeing 787 lands in Japan

Australia’s proposed carbon tax will exempt gasoline, prime minister Julia Gillard said today, as she seeks to make the plan more popular among voters.

“Petrol prices will not be touched by carbon pricing,” Gillard said in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp television today. “Families, tradies, small business people do not have to worry about a petrol price increase.”

Gillard is seeking to garner support for an emissions trading system in the world’s biggest coal exporter, where the number of Australians who say the nation should take action to fight climate change has slipped to a record low 41 per cent, according to a Lowy Institute poll.

Gillard needs the agreement of the Greens Party and three independent lawmakers to pass the plan through parliament. The Multiparty Climate Change Committee of lawmakers is deciding how to compensate Australian households and companies, including coal miners, and on investing in clean energy.