TREASURER Joe Hockey has a message for thousands of mums across the country: “Another taxpayer cannot afford to pay you to choose to stay at home”.

Mr Hockey addressed the LNP faithful at a lunch in Brisbane today, where he reiterated the Government’s commitment to reining in welfare spending and defended the cuts in his tough Budget.

“It’s got to help those most vulnerable,” he said about the nation’s welfare system.

“But it’s also got to be a safety net, not a cargo net.”

The Treasurer said the nation could no longer to hand out Family Tax Benefit-B payments to those who “choose to stay at home”.

“I know some of those changes are difficult — but if we don’t undertake those changes, the system will break,” he said.

“And the hardest measure is to say to someone, whose youngest child turns six and goes to school, that we can no longer pay you to choose to stay at home if you are capable of working.”

Mr Hockey later conceded that being a mum was “the hardest job in the world”, but said women needed to return to work as soon as was practical.

“Another taxpayer cannot afford to pay you to choose to stay at home,” he said.

“We need you to go to work.”

He told those gathered that the Government remained concerned about ensuring the “most vulnerable in the community are protected, the most frail are assisted”.

But he also said there was a strong case for change.

“It’s not always easy, we know that,” he said. “For some in the community, it will be a challenge.”

Mr Hockey said the nation’s “first duty is to ensure that tomorrow is better than today”.

He praised the mining boom’s impact on the nation’s economy, saying it had done “much heavy lifting” — but pointed to the need to boost all sectors.

“We have to lift the tide so that all boats rise,” he said.

He also defended allocating billions to infrastructure in the midst of spending cuts.

“We are doing it because we must, if we want to build a stronger economy,” he said.

He also defended the controversial planned deregulation of tertiary tuition fees.

“We haven’t got a university in the top 20 in the world — why? Because they’re shackled by this heavy regulation,” he said.

“Well now’s the time to lift, now’s the time to aspire.”

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Originally published as Hockey to mums: ‘We need you to work'