The Coalition’s budget contains more than $8bn in “zombie measures” that remain unlegislated from its 2014 budget and 2015 budgets.

The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has detailed the projected impact of those measures on the government’s budget estimates over the next four years, listing every Abbott-Hockey policy that remains stuck in the Senate.

Labor said it would reveal on Friday which of those measures it would and would not oppose.

The measures it committed to reversing would be removed from the bottom line of Labor’s budget calculations, a party spokesman said.

“This will mean the government’s budget contains unlegislated zombie measures, but ours will not – our budget bottom line will be more credible and believable than theirs,” the spokesman said.

Labor also planned to release on Friday a “substantial package” of new savings measures that it said would improve its budget bottom line.

“We will announce some new measures that better target family payments, while protecting those who need support the most,” the spokesman said.

The PBO report shows the number and value of measures that have been included in the Turnbull government’s budget but which have not passed the Senate.

Over four years, the value of those savings measures is $8bn, but that increases to $33.8bn by 2026-27.

Greens Treasury spokesman Adam Bandt said the PBO report showed the government was incorrectly banking $33.8bn of savings over 10 years.

The measures had failed to pass the Senate for a reason, and now was not the time for “unaffordable tax cuts to big business” as the government was proposing, he said.

“The PBO report ... reveals that the government’s banking of $33.8bn in savings is pure fantasy,” Bandt said.

“The Senate has rightly blocked the Tony Abbott-era cuts to Australian families and universities so the government’s claimed $33.8bn in savings are just not there.”

“The government’s big business tax cuts would see us lose $51.1bn in revenue over the next 10 years and mean the projected return to surplus never sees the light of day,” he said.

Two weeks ago, the Coalition criticised Labor’s election spending plans by claiming it had a “$67bn black hole”.



The attack caused Labor to dump $8bn worth of spending commitments over four years – the Schoolkids bonus and the pension assets test.

But the Coalition later admitted that Labor’s black hole could be anywhere between $21bn and $67bn, with the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, saying he would let the media “do a running tally” on the real size of the black hole.

“I said it was up to $67bn. I’m not making an estimate now other than to say it’s up to $67bn,” Morrison said.