The Australian Greens agree the re-run West Australian senate election will be a referendum on the carbon and mining taxes but say the mood has changed since September.
Senior minister Christopher Pyne repeated on Sunday the government's position the fresh senate election, ordered by the High Court, would be a referendum on repealing the taxes.
"There's no doubt about that," he told Sky News.
He added re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission, setting up a registered organisations commission and the the royal commission into union corruption to the list of things the election would gauge opinion on.
Labor and the Greens are holding up legislation for the tax repeals in the Senate.
WA Greens senator Scott Ludlam says the mood of the electorate has changed in the past six months.
"The politics have shifted and there is a backlash in play," he told Sky News.
"We went through several years of a hypothetical Abbott government, now it's real and the slogans aren't wearing so well when they're being deployed from government."
Senator Ludlam will be fighting for his seat in the new election.
He doesn't believe the mining tax in particular is as big an issue as government members think, saying there was a large constituency in WA who believe the mining industry should be more fairly taxed.
The election debacle has claimed two senior scalps at the Australian Electoral Commission, with commissioner Ed Killesteyn and WA electoral officer Peter Kramer quitting on Friday.
Senator Ludlam wanted to know whether they had finalised new procedures for handling votes or "whether that's a job half done for somebody else to do".
He also had questions about whether political pressure had been applied for the men to quit.
The date of the fresh election has yet to be set although AAP understands April 5 is firming as likely.
It is expected to be on the agenda of a strategy meeting involving Prime Minister Tony Abbott, deputy leader Julie Bishop, Liberals federal director Brian Loughnane and WA coalition members on Monday morning in Canberra.
