Federal Employment Minister Eric Abetz admits the government faces a growing battle to deliver on its election promise of one million new jobs in five years.

With more job losses feared after the coalition’s rejection of a $25 million lifeline to SPC Ardmona, Senator Abetz has put the opposition under pressure regarding the one million target.

“We believe that we can do that but our task has clearly been made more difficult by the intransigence of Labor and the Greens in the Senate by not allowing us to remove the carbon and mining taxes as early as we would like,” he told the ABC on Sunday.

The coalition went to the September election promising at least a million new jobs within five years.

Along with removing the mining and carbon taxes, Senator Abetz said government policy aimed to reduce red tape and company tax.

“If we can put all those things in place then we can see the environment being created where the private sector can flourish and grow jobs.”

The carbon tax is hurting the manufacturing sector and its removal will aid job creation, Senator Abetz said.

“In the SPC Ardmona case one would imagine … the carbon tax impost would be in the tens if not hundreds of thousands (of dollars),” he said.

The Australian economy added a net 55,000 jobs in 2013.