A carbon pricing scheme in Australia, commonly dubbed by its critics as a "carbon tax", was introduced by the Gillard Labor Government in 2011 as the Clean Energy Act 2011 which came into effect on 1 July 2012. It was in operation until it was repealed on 17 July 2014, and backdated to 1 July 2014. In its place the Abbott Government set up the Emission Reduction Fund in December 2014. As a result of being in place for such a short time, regulated organizations responded in a rather tepid and informal manner, with very few investments in emissions reductions being made.