JULIA Gillard's punishing program of interviews, community forums and "meet the people" walks since details of her carbon pricing scheme were announced last Sunday is primarily about winning some grudging respect.

"People don't have to like her," a Labor MP said yesterday. "They didn't like Paul Keating or John Howard much either. But they respected them."

Right on cue, the two former prime ministers weighed into the carbon debate. In the process they brought some perspective to the other problem plaguing Gillard - her inconsistency on the issue.

Howard protested to a newspaper columnist about Gillard using his commitment to an emissions trading system before he lost office in 2007 to help justify her similar scheme.

While conceding he had promised to bring in an ETS by 2012, Howard claimed: "I indicated at the time that we would act in concert with the rest of the world and not ahead of it."

But what did he really say back then?

"Australia will continue to lead internationally on climate change, globally and in the Asia-Pacific region," he told a Liberal Party federal council meeting two days after unveiling his ETS blueprint.

"This will be a world-class emissions trading system more comprehensive, more rigorously grounded in economics, and with better governance than anything in Europe."

In an address to the Melbourne Press Club a month later, Howard said: "In the years to come it will provide a model for other nations to follow.

"Being among the first movers on carbon trading in this region will bring new opportunities and we intend to grasp them."

And there was this exchange at a news conference in the run-up to the election that saw him defeated by Kevin Rudd.

Journalist: "Haven't you locked Australia into an emissions trading scheme in the next term?"

Howard: "Yes, I have."

Journalist: "Regardless of what our trading competitors do?"

Howard: "Yes, but that is precisely the sort of contribution we should make."

So Howard - Honest John was his nickname, remember? - is trying to rewrite history.

Keating, too, appears to be adopting a position now that sits uneasily with his stance in government.

On the ABC's Lateline program, he described Gillard's carbon pricing scheme as "a huge reform" that ranked with tariff reductions, the floating of the dollar and other major economic changes of the 1980s and '90s.

"Only a price on carbon will start allocating capital to the right places, where we should be investing in the new Australian economy," Keating said.

BUT in a 1995 autobiography, Hawke government finance minister Peter Walsh revealed what Keating thought about such schemes as treasurer.

The then environment minister, Graham Richardson, argued in Cabinet that Australia should commit itself to stabilising and then reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

This, Walsh wrote, "would do immense damage to the Australian economy, especially if done in isolation".

He said Richardson was "ferociously and successfully opposed by Keating".

When it comes to misleading voters, Howard, Keating and Gillard are peas in a pod.

Howard failed to give voters notice of his draconian WorkChoices laws at the 2004 election, Keating broke his "L-A-W law" tax cut promise after the 1993 poll and Gillard notoriously pledged there would be no carbon tax under a government she led.

Understandably, all three provoked an angry reaction.

The irrational, frothing-at-the-mouth rage that is being directed at Gillard from some quarters, however, has a special quality.

Take the king of Right-wing radio talkback, Alan Jones, who on Tuesday said of Gillard: "I'm putting her into a chaff bag and hoisting her into the Tasman Sea." On Wednesday, Jones claimed her behaviour in imposing the carbon price "borders on the treasonous".

And here he was agreeing with one of his more feral callers on Thursday: "Yeah, that's it. Bring back the guillotine!"

It is one thing to criticise and protest and advocate an anti-Labor vote, but this extremist nonsense is beyond the pale.

Jones's mate, Joe Hockey - who looked suitably aghast when a questioner at a rally spoke of "the people of Australia taking up arms against this Government" - should tell him so.

That being said, though, Gillard's problems are not caused by shock jocks or Opposition scare campaigns or journalists writing what the Prime Minister refers to as "crap".

They are to an overwhelming degree self-inflicted. She shredded her own credibility, and has no reason now to expect that people will believe what she says.

The result is that, as she and Tony Abbott campaign furiously across the country, the PM herself is as much - perhaps more - the issue than the carbon tax.

So she deliberately breaks out of the controlled, stage-managed situations that politicians normally favour. She goes into shopping centres to be accused to her face of lying, fronts hostile questioners at town hall-style meetings, subjects herself to grilling by interviewers she knows will be tough.

No one can accuse Gillard of hiding. She is arguing the carbon tax case anywhere and everywhere, with the aim of altering perceptions of her over the long term.

The Labor hope is that, in a year or so, people will look back and say to themselves: "She stared them down. She got the legislation through. Whether we like the policies or not, she's shown she's a serious Prime Minister."

Grudging respect. It's the best Labor can hope for.

Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in the Herald Sun.

Originally published as PM's long climb to find respect