Carbon tax bill presented at Aussi parliament

Cheers and howls erupted in Australia's Parliament House on Tuesday after Prime Minister Julia Gillard presented a bill for a contentious new pollution tax to combat climate change.
The deeply divisive levy will mean the nation's biggest producers of carbon emissions will be forced to pay to pollute from July 1, 2012 -- initially at a fixed price before moving to a market-based trading scheme.
Gillard faces bitter opposition by the conservative opposition, which argues it will be ineffective.
Thousands of people have protested at rallies nationwide against the levy, accusing Gillard of lying when she said ahead of her narrow August 2010 election win there would be no carbon tax under a government she led.