Labor has already given up trying to justify its carbon tax to the Australian people, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.

Mr Abbott says a week after the national tax on carbon emissions was introduced, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has essentially “given up the fight”.

Publicly Labor was avoiding the subject while privately its members were already discussing changes to the tax, he told reporters on the Gold Coast on Saturday.

“This is the tax that dare not speak its name (and) meanwhile, inside the government, there is all this talk of trying to change the tax,” Mr Abbott said.

“My message to the government – the Australian people’s message to the government – is that this is a toxic tax … and the only way to fix it is to axe it.”

The opposition leader reiterated his vow to do just that if the coalition won government at the next federal election.

He was commenting during a visit to a popular local pie shop at Yatala, on the Gold Coast’s northern fringe, as part of his campaign against the carbon tax.

He said the store was typical of tens of thousands of Australian businesses that were “under the gun” because of the tax.

The opposition leader toured the shop’s on-site bakery, where he tried his hand at making some pies with the federal MP for Ford, Burt van Manen.