This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The Abbott government’s budget measures will cost Australian families and low income earners $15bn, a new report shows.

By keeping most of its 2014 savings measures and delivering new cuts, the federal government will rip the money from basic services and supports over four years, according to an Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss) report released on Saturday.

The figure includes $6bn in cuts to family payments and a $1bn decrease on health spending.

Acoss also says the two budgets will cut $1.8bn, increasing to a total combined $80bn over 10 years, from hospitals and education.

The CEO, Dr Cassandra Goldie, says the overall budget is unfair, with combined cuts from the two budgets to severely affect low and middle income earners.

“The overall budget fails the fairness test because it delivers an estimated $15bn in spending cuts, with new cuts to child dental and community health programs in this budget on top of retained savings from the last budget,” she said.

Dr Goldie said the government had also unfairly linked $3.5bn in spending on childcare to changes to family payments that would result in income losses of $49 per week for single parent families and more for those with older children.

“This cut will have dire consequences, particularly when taken together with the freezing of family payments indexation – a condition for the new investment in child care – given that a third of sole parent families are already living in poverty,” she said.

The report also states most of the $800 million revenue increases over forward estimates will come from income tax bracket creep and economic growth.

Dr Goldie said it was disappointing the government appeared to be retreating from its commitment to pursue comprehensive tax reform, which was vital to provide revenue future governments would need for essential services.

“People on modest incomes will pay for inaction on tax reform when they need health care, to send their children to school, lose their jobs or retire,” she said.