The Prime Minister's warning about health and education spending follows media appearances last week by Health Minister Peter Dutton, and Mr Hockey, in which they suggested that the current rate of government spending was unsustainable.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has signalled that the government want to reduce the growth rate of health and education spending. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Delivering the first in a series of major speeches on the Coalition's health agenda, Mr Dutton said last Wednesday that one of the Abbott government's important tasks was ''to grow the opportunity for those Australians who can afford to do to contribute to their own health care costs''.

''I want to make sure . . . we have a discussion about you or me on reasonable incomes, whether we should expect to pay nothing when we go to see the doctor... should we expect to pay nothing as a co-contribution and other taxpayers to pick up that bill?'' Mr Dutton said.

But Mr Abbott appeared to hose down his Health Minister the next day – last Thursday – saying the government needed to make savings in ways ''consistent with . . . pre-election commitments''.