Labor says the government could recoup all the savings lost when budget measures are blocked in the Senate by abandoning its paid parental leave plan, in an attempt to counter the government’s claim that it is engaged in fiscal “sabotage”.



“The budget proposals that Labor will oppose over the forward estimates add up to less than four years’ expenditure for the government’s extravagant paid parental leave scheme,” shadow treasurer Chris Bowen told the national press club.



“Budgets are about priorities. This government’s values tell them it is OK to introduce a scheme which sends cheques for $50,000 to millionaires who have a baby while cutting the pension, freezing younger people out of Newstart and reducing family payments. This is just wrong … if the government wants to tut-tut Labor about opposing some of their cuts, they cannot seriously say that the budget can afford their paid parental leave scheme which will cost over $5bn a year, every single year,” Bowen said.

Bowen’s comparison would appear to be based on the paid parental leave scheme, which was not itemised in the budget, being scrapped but the 1.5% in additional company tax imposed on big business to pay for it being retained. He did not offer any other budget savings proposals, saying Labor would have “fully costed policies” before the next election.



“We do need to return the budget to surplus over time ... but we don’t accept the way they are doing it, we don’t accept the values,” Bowen said.



The treasurer, Joe Hockey, said Labor had become “the national complaints desk”.



“Bill Shorten is now blocking $40bn of savings including, ironically, $5bn that he promised before the election to pay for things like Gonski. He is now blocking his own savings, he is preventing us from implementing the savings we took to the last election, he is now opposing further savings which means that the pain further down the track for us is going to be greater for Australians if we don’t move now,” Hockey said.



But the government continued to face a torrid reaction on the hustings as it attempted to sell its first budget. Tony Abbott and the education minister, Christopher Pyne, were forced to cancel a university visit because of planned “national day of action” student protests against tertiary education cuts, and Abbott has faced angry calls on talkback radio.



Abbott said he hoped that once the budget deficit was reduced, the government would be able to offer tax cuts in its next term.



“I would like to be in a position to offer tax cuts in our next term, at the moment I’m certainly not guaranteeing that or promising it ...The whole point of getting the budget under control now is that we can offer tax cuts in the future,” Abbott said.



Abbott also denied the federal government was trying to force the states to start a national debate about a higher or broader goods and services tax by cutting $80bn from forecast spending for schools and hospitals.



Abbott said spending would continue to rise, but not by as much as originally forecast, and added: “I don’t think we need to leap to the conclusion just because spending is going up 6% rather than 9% that we have to increase the GST.

“We cannot assume the answer to every problem is a tax.”

Bowen defended Labor’s stand against major budget items, saying the parliament was “not a rubber stamp for broken promises or bad policy” and Labor’s “values” meant it had to stand up for low-income families, pensioners and universal healthcare.



He again indicated Labor was likely to back the 2% “temporary deficit levy” on those earning more than $180,000. Labor will oppose about $15bn in budget measures, including the Medicare co-payment ($3.4bn), pension indexation changes ($500m), the changes to higher education (about $5bn), the reintroduction of fuel excise indexation ($2.2bn), removing single income family payments when the youngest child turns six ($1.9bn), the changes to unemployment benefits ($1.1bn) and the extra pharmaceuticals co-payment ($1.2bn).



He said the numerous broken promises in the budget had robbed the government of “moral authority”.



The government said it did not include the paid parental leave scheme in the budget because it had recently reduced the maximum benefit it would pay from $75,000 for six months’ leave to $50,000, and was in negotiations with the states about flow-on impacts from this decision.



It said the net cost of the scheme – after the 1.5% levy on large companies – was almost $1bn in 2015-16, but that it would become a net benefit to the budget of about $1.7bn by 2016-17.







