The man chosen to spruik the Abbott government's Intergenerational Report in a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign – popular science broadcaster Karl Kruszelnicki – says the report is "not perfect" and he wishes it focused more on climate change.

Dr Kruszelnicki, widely known as Dr Karl, told Fairfax Media that he had not read the report before he agreed to front the campaign and expressed surprise that it modelled scenarios under previous Labor policies as well as current policy settings.

He agreed to do it to support long-term policy making and because he gets paid "bugger all" by his employers, the ABC and the University of Sydney, he said.

The Intergenerational Report - a snapshot of Australia in 40 years - was criticised by Labor as a "highly political document" for, among other things, downgrading climate change from its own chapter in 2010 to three-and-a-half pages in 2015.