After a revolt by his own caucus for supporting PM Rudd's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the Opposition leader has been replaced with one (Tony Abbott) who opposes the bill.
Due to the undemocratic nature of their Senate (sound familiar?) the governing Labor party does not have even a plurality of Senators and needed some of the Opposition to support the bill in the Senate. Now that won't happen, as the new leader will use strict party discipline to defeat the bill in the Upper chamber.
Rudd can call a snap "double dissolution" election where both chambers of Parliament go up for re-election. Assuming he wins (BBC says polling favours him), and the Senate defeats the bill again, he can call a joint session of Parliament, where they vote on the bill as a combined chamber (and the House's numerical advantage will mean it passes easily).
This has happened only once before. It was what Labor had to do to get universal health care passed the conservatives in the Senate in 1974.
Down under, Senates, and conservatives, suck too. At least the Aussies built in some kind of Lower house trump card to override them on major issues. Oh, and they pass bills by majority vote too.
Australia passing a Cap and Trade system ahead of Copenhagen would have added useful momentum and credibility to the effort. It would also have bolstered efforts to get the US emissions bill passed its House of Lords. Australian tea baggers have succeeded in hurting the chances of something meaningful coming out of Copenhagen.
See the dirty secret here is that Canada has historically been notably less wealthy than the US (Nationmaster lists the US at $6K higher in GDP per capita for 2006) and there was always an element of apples to oranges in comparing our systems. We have fewer MRIs? Well, duh. Of course America should have had the better system, and at the upper end of the income spectrum, they probably do. The fact that we're ahead at all is itself an indication of how broken the US model is.
So let's transmogrify those oranges into apples, and get some idea what it would mean to implement US level health spending within other systems. US health care reform opponents have recently moved from bashing Canada to the UK's NHS, but the same sort of disparity applies. In 2006, the UK spent about US$192B (8.2% of GDP) on health care, based on an economy that generated $39K per capita. America spent $2 trillion (15.3%) based on an economy that generated $44K per capita. The Brits too, spent less of their national income on health care, but that income is proportionally smaller too. Let's adjust both dials and see what we get.
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