Labor will stick by the policies it takes to the election even if an Abbott government claims a mandate to dump the carbon tax.
Climate Change Minister Mark Butler says Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is putting up "a very new theory of mandate" with his insistence that Labor must help the coalition reverse Labor's own carbon pricing policy.
Mr Abbott has vowed to repeal the carbon tax, which is transitioning to an emissions trading scheme in 2015, if the coalition wins Saturday's election.
Mr Butler says Labor's very clear policy is to move from the current fixed price on carbon pollution to an emissions trading scheme a year earlier.
"It's always been the tradition in the Australian political scene that MPs stick by the policies they took to the people," he told ABC TV on Wednesday.
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"I think people would be terribly surprised if we did anything other than that.
"We're not simply going to lie down and let Tony Abbott do whatever he does without voicing our particular position that we took on Saturday."
Earlier on Wednesday Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Labor would never "pull up the white flag" on climate change.
"If we in Australia turn our back on it, it licenses everyone around the world to do the same," he told the Nine Network.
He says climate change and global warming aren't going away and voters who have doubts about the coalition's direct action plan shouldn't vote for them.
But opposition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt says any Labor refusal to support a coalition government's moves would be "inconceivable" and a "breathtaking defiance" of voters.
"Now what they're saying is they will thumb their nose at the Australian people," he told the ABC.
"They have learnt nothing and they need a period in opposition to reflect."
The coalition has repeatedly called this election a referendum on the carbon tax.
It has hinted it may resort to a double dissolution if Labor and the Greens thwart their mandate to axe the tax.
But Mr Hunt says another election is not something the coalition wants to rush to.
