By a man's deeds shall you know him

And probably the same can be said of governments. If, naming no names, a hypothetical government was elected having promised to deal with a spiralling deficit and an eye-watering level of debt left it by its predecessors, and then it carried on largely as before you'd know that it wasn't really all that serious about what it had said. It would have been talking the talk rather than walking the walk. Similarly if a government tries something and is universally praised by other governments, but those governments don;t show any interest in following suit, you have to wonder how much of that praise is meant honestly and how much is nothing but empty diplomacy. Our dear Madam Prime Minister, Gingery Dullard, ought to be asking herself that question about now (possible paywall).

JULIA Gillard's introduction of a carbon tax has been praised at the latest economic summit for showing the way on climate change but Australia is being isolated within the G20 on carbon pricing as members retreat due to changing priorities and economic pressure.
[...]
While Australia is pursuing the most comprehensive carbon tax in the world to combat the effects of climate change, other G20 members are retreating from emissions trading schemes to cut greenhouse gas emissions, such as Canada, while others are giving greater emphasis to dealing with the immediate effects of climate change.
[...]
Senior fellow at the Canadian-based G20 watchdog, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Daniel Schwanen, told The Weekend Australian the praise for carbon tax "would not play well at home".

I should bloody coco. Even making the generous assumption that the warble gloaming catastrophists are actually right the whole idea that other nations will follow Australia's lead, which was the only possible answer its supporters could offer when asked how it could possibly change anything given Australia's meagre emissions, was part of the efforts to sell the carbon tax to us. If the response from the rest of the industrialised world is words to the effect of "Good on Australia for doing this, but don't think for a moment that we're going to do it too" then you have to wonder if the case for it was really that solid. If it was wouldn't they be falling over themselves to join in?

Which should really have Jules wondering now whether it's such a good idea after all. I don't really think she's daft and I'm sure she's been wondering that for a while now, but being left by other countries to go it alone speaks far louder than the praise she's had for doing it.