FORMER Liberal Party Leader John Hewson says Scott Morrison hasn’t “performed that well” as Treasurer and claims the Prime Minister’s failure to inform him of the new budget date signalled a “breakdown” between the pair.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week denied cutting Mr Morrison out of the loop, while admitting he wasn’t part of the “small circle” that decided to move the Budget date forward.

But Mr Hewson, an economist, said the PM had left Mr Morrison “high and dry”.

“I think it’s indicative of a breakdown in that relationship which I think is very significant,” he told Sky News.

“The one thing you might have wanted to tell the Treasurer before you changed the date was the date of his budget.”

Mr Hewson said he thought Mr Morrison had failed to deliver as Treasurer.

“I must say more broadly though I don’t think Morrison has performed that well as Treasurer,” he said.

“I mean I think he’s a very good developer of arguments in the political sphere. He’s a great spin merchant.

“You can’t spin the economy for very long. You have got to actually have substantive answers and be prepared to carry them through.

“And of course he has found himself out there proposing that we hand back bracket creep or reforming the tax system more broadly, whatever the elements have been, in each case the rug has been pulled out from underneath him.

“That just shows a breakdown, a dysfunction in government and his inability to hand that.”

Just hours before Mr Turnbull’s announcement on Monday he would bring forward the Federal Budget to May 3, Mr Morrison told a radio program it would be handed down, as originally scheduled, on May 10.

But Mr Turnbull last week claimed there was “no question that the Treasurer was absolutely in the loop”.

“It was a very small circle,” he told Channel Nine.

“I spent the evening, well, the bulk of my time with my ministerial colleagues.

“It was obviously spent with the Attorney-General, who provided the advice.”