CORMANN PROVES THIS BUDGET WAS DESIGNED TO SAVE TONY ABBOTT’S SKIN

Just over a day after the Government handed down its Budget, Ministers are already trying to manufacture a distraction from their performance.

So concerned is the Government about the backlash over its cuts to paid parental leave, cuts to family payments and cuts to schools and hospitals they’ve given up on selling the Budget.

If only Mathias Cormann and Josh Frydenberg put as much time and effort into Budget perpetration as they did attacking the Opposition.

If only they were as obsessed about this country’s future as they are obsessed with the Opposition.

Today’s performance proves that this is not a Budget for Australia’s future – this is a short-term political fix to save Tony Abbott’s job.

This Budget is about the next election, not the next decade.

The Budget has more tax, more debt and higher unemployment.

On Joe Hockey’s own numbers, he has doubled the deficit in one year.

Tax is at its highest level since the last Budget of the Howard Government

The numbers they released today are dodgy and desperate.

Labor has announced more than $20 billion worth of savings measures - unprecedented for an Opposition at this stage of the electoral cycle.

The Government’s lite-touch approach to multinational tax raises a meagre $30 million over four years and a whole lot of asterisks – Labor’s raises $7 billion over ten years.

Labor has announced a plan to make the superannuation system fairer, reducing spending on the excessive concessions given to wealthy superannuants.

Ever since he was sworn in, Mathias Cormann together with Joe Hockey, has been parroting figures which the Government is responsible for but continue to falsely attribute to Labor.

Australia deserves a Government that is focused on the needs and future of the Australian people, not one that wastes it's time on political games that lack substance, credibility or truth.