Whether it is good or bad policy for Australia becomes somewhat irrelevant when voters were denied their voice.
Gillard went to the last election effectively changing labor's previously pro-carbon pricing policy to a "no carbon tax" policy.
Who gave her the right to then change that as soon as she got in? This resistance to carbon tax is as much about voters being annoyed at Gillard's seeming lack of democratic process. And also, the carbon tax ads were not entirely truthful by displaying power plants emitting thick black smoke to depict co2 when it is actually an invisible gas.
Gillard wants to implement it just one year before the next election. If she had waited and sold her carbon tax story effectively, she would have gained the people's approvel and implemented it just one year later - surely that's not much longer in the big scheme of things?
But to ram it down our throats while thumbing her nose at her pre-election promise, doesn't bode well with voters.
This will be one of the major reasons carbon tax will be voted out in no uncertain terms, imo.
