Well, making necessities more expensive is difficult to sell no matter how it’s packaged. Like it or not, oil is used in everything from transporting food, to growing food, to medicine and supplements, to commuting for work, to home insulation and building, to iPhones and computers. Making those things more expensive, no matter the righteousness of the intention, hurts especially the working classes and the poor. Targeted subsidies to compensate them for their loss is impossible to fairly calibrate, and usually results in even greater political turmoil.

Carbon taxes can work if the country is wealthy and can afford the productivity loss (and the citizens are willing to give up that economic progress and wealth). Given the relatively small size of Australia, and the tiny reduction in global CO2 output relative to the exponentially higher output of China alone, I think most Australians believe the very small ecological benefits are vastly outweighed by the social and economic costs. Such a tax is political suicide right now. Making the cost of housing and transport and food more expensive given current geopolitical events would be highly irresponsible.