Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has toned down his attack on Labor's carbon tax. Source: AAP
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has toned down his attack on Labor's carbon tax as another poll showed the government had made gains among voters four months since the impost began.
Before July 1, Mr Abbott said the carbon tax would have an "unimaginable" impact on prices, destroy businesses and wreck the economy.
Since then, he's pursued the government over power price rises and blamed the tax for hurting households by causing significant jumps in utility bills.
The government has countered this by arguing that carbon pricing has contributed less than 10 per cent to bills, while investment and jobs growth has continued, inflation has been contained and many Australians are receiving compensation for the impact of the policy.
Visiting a motorbike shop in Canberra on Monday, Mr Abbott said its power bill had risen by 50 per cent but he conceded that not all of the increase was down to the carbon tax.
"That is certainly not all the carbon tax, but the carbon tax is making a bad situation worse," Mr Abbott told reporters.
However, he maintained that the carbon tax - which would be scrapped under a coalition government - was "emblematic" of the government's failure to understand small business and households and introduced at the worst possible time.
Mr Abbott's comments came as leaked Treasury analysis showed three coalition tax policies would hit businesses to the tune of $4.57 billion in the first full year of a Liberal-National government and $17.2 billion over four years.
The policies include a 1.5 per cent levy on big companies to fund paid parental leave, axing the instant asset write-off and other tax breaks for small business funded by the carbon tax and the abolition of the business loss carry-back policy.
Mr Abbott said it was wrong of the government to misuse Treasury for political point-scoring and he stressed that he was committed to lower levels of tax for business.
"Taxes on business will be less under the coalition than under Labor because the carbon tax will be gone, the mining tax will be gone and there will be a modest company tax cut," he said.
Trade Minister Craig Emerson said there was nothing unusual about Treasury costing policies.
Greens leader Christine Milne said the analysis and the faltering of Mr Abbott's carbon tax "scare campaign" undermined the coalition's credibility.
Since late August, Labor's position in the opinion polls has improved to a point where the influential Newspoll survey now puts the government and opposition neck-and-neck.
A Galaxy poll, published on Monday by News Ltd, put the two-party preferred vote at 53 per cent for the coalition against 47 per cent for Labor - a three-point rise for Labor since June.
But it also found that prominent frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull was preferred as opposition leader by 60 per cent of voters compared with 29 per cent for Mr Abbott.
Mr Abbott attributed the result to Mr Turnbull making an impact in his communications portfolio.
"The fact that more and more people are realising the national broadband network is the wrong way to go about giving Australians faster and more affordable broadband is in large measure testimony to (Mr Turnbull's) effectiveness in prosecuting that case," Mr Abbott said.
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