A few weeks ago, the Coalition's pre-election commitment to ''turn back the boats'' was broken after Immigration Minister Scott Morrison ended a tense standoff with Jakarta - which was refusing to accept a boatload of asylum seekers - by ordering the boat to be taken to Christmas Island.

A post-election advertisement from the Coalition.

Last month, Treasurer Joe Hockey said he wanted to increase the debt ceiling from $300 billion to $500 billion. That was after the Coalition attacked the then Labor government's decision in May last year to raise Australia's debt ceiling from $250 billion to $300 billion, which Tony Abbott described at the time as ''really extraordinary''.

''What Joe Hockey is now doing on both the commission of cuts and on the issue of the debt ceiling is a million miles away from the expectations he gave the Australian people before the election,'' Labor finance spokesman Tony Burke said about the Coalition's recent decision to raise the debt limit.

Mr Abbott also promised before the election to have a government ''which is transparent and open'', saying ''the last thing we want to do is to hide anything from the Australian people''.