The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has taken aim at a raft of Australian budget measures, describing one as potentially unsustainable and another as requiring close monitoring.

It has also urged Australia to shake up superannuation tax concessions and to lift sharply the goods and services tax to cut income tax.

Success? Christopher Pyne's plan to allow universities to charge more for courses will work only if there is genuine competition, the OECD says. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The Paris-based organisation's biennial review of Australia found the balance of risks facing the Australian economy contained more substantial downside than upside.

"External risks, chiefly from commodity markets, combined with speculative activity in the housing sector and uncertainties in the responsiveness of non-resource sectors, could conspire to generate a period of weak macroeconomic activity," it said.