The insults have started to fly from Coalition frontbenchers furious at being snubbed by the independents who backed Labor into government.

Just weeks after their leader, Tony Abbott, pledged a "kinder, gentler polity" as he sought to woo the independents, his senior troops came out all guns blazing today, attacking the legitimacy of Julia Gillard's administration.

Liberal Senator George Brandis told ABC Radio the Labor government had "as much legitimacy as the Pakistani cricket team".

His colleague, Christopher Pyne, the opposition's manager of business in the House of Representatives, said the alliance between Labor, Greens MP Adam Bandt and independents Andrew Wilkie, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, was like "putting the mongoose and the cobra together".