Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has attacked large sections of the media and the business community for talking up the size of the likely budget deficit.

In a pre-budget speech to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), Mr Swan said certain individuals and groups have undertaken a "reckless campaign" against the Government.

"Some commentators and interest groups have made a concerted attempt in recent weeks to create a climate of crisis around budget preparations and the process and the Australian economy," he said.

"And, of course, this reckless campaign is as false as it is dangerous."

In a draft of the speech released to the media ahead of its delivery, Mr Swan accused "ideologues" of using "fiscal fear mongering as cover for their desire to cut to the bone and dismantle the social safety net" - a line he did not end up using during the speech.

However, one group singled out for particular criticism was the Business Council of Australia, which Mr Swan effectively accused of hypocrisy in its criticism of any new taxes.

"The Business Council of Australia has come out calling for no new levies in this year's budget," he told the audience at CEDA.

"Now I do think you've got to question the priorities of a business group that gives Joe Hockey a leave pass to whack a 1.5 per cent tax on its members, but then rails against a levy to support people with a disability, and I think this approach is simply heartless."

Revenue problem

Just before Christmas last year, Wayne Swan dropped the Government's long standing commitment to deliver a budget surplus in 2012-13, blaming a shortfall in actual tax collections compared with what was expected.

In his speech today, Mr Swan pointed the finger firmly at the fiscal record of his predecessor, saying spending decisions in the last five years of the Howard government were responsible for the current budget deficit.

The Treasurer also defended the need to raise a new levy to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), saying the budget deficit was being caused by a drop in revenue, not a rise in spending.

"My predecessor got a $334 billion revenue windfall and didn't invest a lot of that in nation's future. In my time as Treasurer, I've copped $160 billion in revenue downgrades," Mr Swan told the audience.

"Our expenditure, as a percentage of our economy, over the forward estimates is set to come in at less than the average of the 30 years prior to Labor coming into office in 2007.

"So much for the claim that these challenges are on the expenditure side of the budget. They are not; they're on the revenue side."

Mr Swan said a slide in corporate profitability, as well as the end of the pre-financial crisis period of double-digit house and share-price growth that had boosted capital gains tax receipts, have caused most of the revenue shortfall.

He also argued a large part of the budget hole was traceable to spending measures untaken towards the end of the Howard government.

"While it's true that the previous government had budget surpluses, they were not surpluses built on the hard work of finding savings," he said.

"They were built on unsustainable revenues from the first phase of the mining boom, and those revenues were largely spent. For example, in the 2007 budget alone, the Howard government spent nearly $70 billion in new measures."

Mr Swan said the upcoming budget would respond to the fall in revenue and, while it would "remain in deficit for longer than previously forecast", the Government would take action to put it on a path towards surplus in the medium term, even if some of the measures were unpopular.

"When the facts change, it's incumbent on the treasurer of this country to change with them, whatever the political cost," he said, adapting a well-known statement by economist John Maynard Keynes.