Watch out would-be carbon taxers.  You’re signed up for what the left-wing Guardian newspaper just termed “the killing fields of Australian politics.”

Repealing the tax on CO2 was a central pledge of Tony Abbott’s coalition.  A pledge which led to the ouster of Australia’s Labor Party after six years in power.

Tony AbbottAbbott’s coalition appears poised to win 91 seats while cutting Labor down to a mere 54.

Abbott has the votes he needs to repeal the CO2 tax in the House of Representatives, but the Senate appears less certain.  Seats in the Australian Senate are awarded according to a complicated system of proportional representation which grants seats to very small minority parties.  Julian Assange, of Wikileaks fame, is trying to nab a seat in the Senate that way.

Abbott has expressed a willingness to dissolve the entire government and call early elections if the Senate fails to join in repealing the carbon tax.

Will candidates in other countries heed the Australian example and abandon the carbon tax before it defeats them?