Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has hit back at Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson for suggesting that ''vague notions'' of unfairness associated with the federal budget were unconvincing and amounted to a recipe for continued economic decline.

With approximately $25 billion of savings and new revenue measures in limbo and awaiting parliamentary passage, the Treasury secretary, who is being shown the door himself later this year, had used a speech in Canberra to implicitly criticise Labor and crossbench parties for using the idea of fairness as a reason to block the budget.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Addressing the same ANU conference at which the comments had been made 24 hours earlier, Mr Shorten slammed the suggestion that cuts to pensions and programs for the least well off were in any way vague or notional.

''I think this budget creates inequality and I saw that someone yesterday said that vague notions of fairness didn't do this budget credit,'' Mr Shorten said.