I'll rule out a carbon tax, but let's not go overboard and rule out splitting hairs

When it comes to carbon, Julia Gillard finds it best to move forwards and not look back.

Julia Gillard on August 16 last year:

There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.

Just in case you missed it, Gillard in The Australian on August 20, the day before the federal election:

I don't rule out the possibility of legislating a carbon pollution reduction scheme, a market-based mechanism. I rule out a carbon tax.

Gillard on 3AW yesterday:

What I announced yesterday was a market mechanism to price carbon. It's going to have a fixed price for the first few years. Now, there was going to be this silly semantic debate break out about whether or not that was effectively like a tax, and I'm happy to say for the first few years with a fixed price, it's effectively like a tax.

In happier times. Alan Jones praises Gillard on March 4 last year:

You're a smart lady . . . I will say to my listeners: this is a woman who has nothing to do with health care and she is the minister for education and industrial relations and she'd most probably run rings around anyone in government arguing the case today.

That smarts, lady. Jones reassessing his fandom yesterday:

Do you understand, Julia, that you are the issue today, because there are people now saying your name is not Julia but Ju-liar and they are saying that we've got a liar running the country. Do you accept the fact that you've stolen an election with a false promise?

Black is white yesterday:

Gillard: Pricing carbon is the right thing to do and I said that during the election campaign.

Alan Jones: No, you did not.

Gillard: Yes, I did Alan.

Jones: Julia, you gave a policy speech.

Gillard: Get all of the statements out, Alan, and you will see . . .

Jones: Julia, people . . .

Gillard: During the election campaign I said climate change is real; I said we needed to address it.

Jones: Julia.

Gillard: That pricing carbon . . .

Jones: PM.

Gillard: . . . is the most efficient way to do it.

Jones: PM.

Gillard: That is what happened during the election campaign.

Jones: PM, PM, this is untruthful. You launched . . .

Gillard: Alan, check my statements.

John Howard on May 2, 1995:

No, there's no way that a GST will ever be part of our policy . . . Never ever. It's dead. It was killed by the voters in the last election.

Spot the difference. Howard in The Australian on election day, October 3, 1998, after campaigning openly for a GST:

If we win, no matter what the majority is, if we win and have a working majority, I will be entitled to claim a mandate to implement the tax plan.

Saif Gaddafi on Libyan television last Monday:

Europe and the West will not agree to chaos in Libya, to export chaos and drugs so they will occupy us . . . Libyans are coming to support Gaddafi. . . . Now comes the role of the National Guard and the army . . . Sixty years ago they defended Libya from the colonialists, now they will defend it from drug addicts . . . We will fight to the last man and woman and bullet. We will not lose Libya. We will not let Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and BBC trick us.

Lord Meghnad Desai, Saif Gaddafi's former professor at the London School of Economics, in London's Evening Standard on Tuesday:

I was disappointed by the speech because he was not behaving as if he had had an LSE education.

A disappointed Australian Football League chief executive Andrew Demetriou in Melbourne newspaper The Age yesterday:

I am under no illusions that we have some way to go to change the attitudes and behaviour of some men towards women. . . . The AFL is naturally very disappointed with the actions of [Ricky] Nixon.