The government announced in its package that carbon will have an initial price of $23 per tonne, with the revenue it raises being used to compensate households and assist industries during the transition period.
Mr Abbott said: "What is the point of all of this ... if millions of Australians are going to be worse off, we not actually going to cut our emissions.

"This is a Labor-Green carbon tax, and it's going to drive up prices, threaten jobs and do nothing at all for the environment."

He said the government boasted that 90 per cent of Australians would receive compensation and that 40 per cent of households would be overcompensated. "I think all Australians are capable of translating pollie-speak," he said."What that means is that 10 per cent of households will get absolutely nothing, and that 60 per cent of households will either be worse off or it will be line ball."

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said the financial year was only 10 days on and calculated that the budget was already $2.7 billion worse off. "It's going to be costly, it's going to complex and it is relying heavily on a 'trust me' factor," Mr Hockey said.

He said Australians were going to pay heavily either indirectly or directly. "There is nothing in here for what is an amazingly complex new regulatory system for every business, and it's going to have an impact on confidence, it is going to have an impact on sovereign risk," he said.

Mr Hockey said he couldn't identify how many new public servants were going to be employed to deliver this reform, but there were six new commonwealth bureaucracies and 22 new programs and funds that needed to be run.

 Source: AAP