To the north, extra lanes will be added to Childs Road in Mill Park, Sunbury Road in Sunbury, Epping Road and the Bridge Inn Road in Doreen. Mr Morrison said the projects were aimed at fast-growing parts of Melbourne. "Upgrading suburban roads in the south-east is about ensuring Melburnians get home sooner and safer. We are pleased to be working in partnership with the state government to deliver these improvements," he said. "I want people across Melbourne to spend less time in traffic and more time doing what’s important to them."

The spending on roads leads into a battle over tax cuts between Mr Morrison and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten before the May 11 or May 18 federal poll. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who will use Tuesday night's budget to hand out $285 million in one-off payments to pensioners, carers and single parents to cover the cost of electricity bills, signalled broader relief to working families was on the agenda. He also refused to rule out further handouts to particular voters, saying the $75 payments to singles and $125 to couples was "responsible, targeted spending". Josh Frydenberg has left open the door to extra tax cuts and handouts in Tuesday's budget Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The second round of already legislated tax cuts is due to begin from mid-July 2022. Under these changes, the $90,000 threshold for the 37 per cent tax rate increases to $120,000 while the 19 per cent threshold increases from $37,000 to $41,000.

The changes, however, deliver relatively little to workers on between $50,000 and $90,000 a year who form the bulk of all paid Australians. Moving on the tax cuts in the budget, however, gives Mr Shorten the opportunity to mimic them. In his budget-in-reply speech last year, Mr Shorten bettered the government's tax cuts to low- and middle-income earners, drawing on some of the revenue Labor is banking to gain from its reforms in areas such as capital gains tax and negative gearing. Mr Bowen, who on Sunday confirmed that if Labor won the election he would hand down his own budget update in the second half of the year, signalled the ALP was open to further tax cuts if they were affordable. "Certainly, you can afford tax cuts when you've made the right decisions elsewhere in the budget, like we have," he said.

"We recognise the need particularly in the era of low wages growth and cost-of -living pressures, everything going up, except for people's wage, carefully targeted tax relief for low and middle-income earners is important for the economy." New research from the left-leaning Australia Institute shows a lift in wages would deliver far more to ordinary workers than changes to tax rates. The government has claimed that tax cuts can make up for slow wages growth, which the Reserve Bank has identified as a key issue facing the overall economy. Based on modelling a plan to bring forward the government's tax cuts, the institute found across all pay scales people would be substantially better off with a pay rise of 3.5 per cent. A person on $60,000 a year would gain $210 if the government's legislated tax cuts were brought forward. But if wages grew by 3.5 per cent, the same person would enjoy a $966 pre-tax increase in their pay packet.

Over three years, that person would save $630 in tax but if wages grew at 3.5 per cent per year they would have enjoyed a $4305 pay increase. For someone on $100,000, earlier tax cuts would give them $610 while a 3.5 per cent wage rise would boost their wage by $2153. Report authors Jim Stanford and Troy Henderson said if wages grew at 3.5 per cent, which is what they averaged in the 15 years up to 2013, workers would be far ahead of anything that could be delivered via a tax cut. "The government claims that pre-election tax cuts, instead of regular, normal wage increases, can somehow address the crisis in household finances faced by millions of working Australians. That claim is mathematically false," they found. The Australian Council of Social Services said rather than cutting income taxes, the government should look to boost Newstart by $75 a week.

While tax cuts will be a key feature of the budget, the government will also announce the inclusion on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme of the medicine Bavenico for the treatment of metastatic merkel cell carcinoma, a rare type of skin cancer, as well as Ibrance which will assist people suffering from breast cancer. Without the listing, Bavenico would cost a patient $150,000 a year while Ibrance would cost $55,000.