Tony Abbott has boldly declared his government ''conservationist'' while delivering the biggest win of his prime ministership with the successful repeal of the carbon tax.

It came after a marathon 55-hour debate in which only Labor and the Greens voted to keep the impost alive.

The Coalition and the crossbench, including the Palmer United Party, voted together to dump the controversial tax, which has wreaked havoc in Australian politics and been instrumental in the demise of some of the nation's most senior leaders, including Malcolm Turnbull, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

Repealing the tax, frequently described by Mr Abbott as a ''wrecking ball'' on the Australian economy, honours a fundamental pledge of the Coalition's 2013 election campaign.

But the abolition has left Australia with no economy-wide mechanism for reaching its bipartisan target of a minimum 5 per cent reduction of emissions by 2020.

The government insists the target can be met by its replacement policy, known as Direct Action, but admits it needs legislation to set up the process, which will use taxpayer funds to ''purchase'' emissions from large polluters willing to cut output.

Energy company AGL said removing the tax would cut $186 million off its pretax profit for the new financial year, with $100 million of this from losing subsidies for the Loy Yang A power station.

Announcing the end of the carbon tax, a triumphant Mr Abbott directed his opening comments at the Australian people before turning to a political attack on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. ''You voted to scrap the tax in September last year and today the Parliament finally listened,'' he said to Australians.

''Today, the tax that you voted to get rid of is finally gone. A useless, destructive tax which damaged jobs, which hurt families' cost of living and which didn't actually help the environment is finally gone.''

In the Senate, Greens leader Christine Milne condemned the repeal, as did Tasmanian Labor senator Lisa Singh. ''We are sending this country backwards,'' she said. ''All for what? For playing politics. It is an outrageous moment in Australia's history.''

Mr Abbott denied his policy had left Australia without a mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ''We are a government which absolutely appreciates that we have only got one planet and we should pass it on to our children and grandchildren in at least as good shape as we found it,'' he said.

''So we are a conservationist government and we will do what we think is the sensible thing to try to bring emissions down.''

After weeks of confusion over the future of the tax, fuelled by the intervention of the Palmer United Party's approach, attention turns to the prospects for Direct Action.

PUP leader Clive Palmer has previously described Direct Action as a ''waste of money'', but has since proposed backing it in exchange for retaining an emissions trading scheme - albeit dormant state only to be activated once comparable economies do likewise.

Government sources confirmed it had no intention of allowing a trading scheme back on the statute books, contradicting a claim by one of the PUP senators, Jacqui Lambie, who on Thursday said the government had already agreed privately to the condition.

Asked repeatedly if he would rule out a carbon price in future, Mr Abbott refused to be definitive.

Despite that uncertainty, Mr Abbott suggested progress towards his Direct Action policy was achievable without giving ground to Palmer's party on an ETS. ''What we've seen over the last few days is that just because people will start off with a particular position doesn't mean that they end up with the same position,'' he said.

In an earlier press conference, Mr Shorten did not rule out voting for Direct Action, despite describing the policy as an inefficient mechanism that gives ''wads of taxpayer money to big polluters for little likely result''.

The repeal made news around the world but not all of it put Australia in a favourable light. European Union Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the EU ''regretted'' the decision. Numerous other reports noted Australians were the world's biggest polluters per capita.

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