Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said on Monday that Australians should not put their trust on opposition leader Tony Abbot even if the latter manifested his disapproval for Work Choices by resting his initials on a symbolic death certificate for the controversial legislation.

Mr Abbot declared that "Work Choices is dead, it's buried, it's cremated," during an interview with Fairfax Radio.

The legislation was the brainchild of the John Howard government, which called for industrial deregulation in its aim to spike up employment conditions.

However, the country's trade unions aired fierce criticisms on most of Work Choices provisions then, which was widely seen as the largest contributing factor on Labour's electoral win in 2007.

On his part, Mr Tanner argued that despite the display of disapproval for Work Choices, Mr Abbot stealthily supported the legislation, adding that "it's worth noting that Tony Abbott is the protégé of the bloke who said we'd never, ever have a GST (former Prime Minister Howard)."

He believed that Australian should arrive on their own conclusions on whether Mr Abbot's Liberal Party would revive the controversial Work Choices as he reminded that "they might be a little bit sneakier about it than they were last time but nonetheless I think it's clear that's what they stand for and that's what they want to do."