The Abbott government is determined to press ahead with its bid to repeal Labor's carbon tax despite a hostile Senate.
Incoming climate minister Greg Hunt says Saturday's coalition election victory was a referendum on axing the tax.
The coalition will now take its plans to get rid of the tax to both houses of parliament.
"We would expect that the Labor Party will not stand in the way of what was a central, fundamental item for the election," Mr Hunt told ABC radio on Monday.
He insists the legislation will go before the Senate, even before the Greens and Labor lose control of the upper house in July 2014.
Prime minister-elect Tony Abbott has said the coalition will do "whatever we need to do" to scrap the carbon tax.
Mr Hunt was asked on Monday whether that meant the coalition would go to a double dissolution if parliament refused to support its legislation.
"We will not stop until the carbon tax is repealed," he said.
"But the simplest thing, the easiest thing, the right thing would be for the ALP to say 'we hear the people and we won't stand in the way of lower electricity prices'."
Senior Labor MPs, including acting ALP leader Anthony Albanese, say they won't be supporting a repeal of the carbon price.
Liberal senator Mitch Fifield believes that's an untenable position.
"I can only put that down to being still in the denial phase of the grieving process," he told Sky News.
"So we will allow the Labor Party that.
"But when legislation comes to the parliament to repeal the carbon tax they should support it. Otherwise they haven't heard the message of the Australian people."
Labor MP Andrew Leigh says there is nothing in the mandate theory which says a party that pursues a particular position in government should flip that position in opposition.
"Mr Abbott may have been a weathervane on climate change but I'm not," he told Sky.
"We will pursue policies we think are right for the nation."
