The Coalition has found $31.6 billion of savings over the next four years to pay for its election promises, says shadow treasurer Joe Hockey.
The Coalition says the biggest saving will be reducing the public service by 12,000 people, saving $5.2 billion over the budget forward estimates.
Discontinuing business compensation measures from abolishing the carbon tax will save $5.1 billion, while there are a number of savings from scrapping the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT).
These include $3.7 billion from not proceeding with the low-income super guarantee that was supposed to be funded from revenue from the MRRT.
Similarly, abolishing the schoolkids bonus will save $4.6 billion and delaying increasing the compulsory superannuation guarantee will save $1.6 billion.
It says there will be a net saving of $1.1 billion from the Coalition’s paid parental leave scheme.
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Hockey said the savings made up the “great bulk” of those the Coalition needed to find.
“The Coalition is absolutely committed to living within its means,” Hockey told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
“After six years of Labor getting every single budget number wrong, enough is enough.”
The Coalition’s plan would put the budget in “slightly” better condition than under Labor, Hockey said.
Hockey said the Coalition would adopt Labor’s recently announced savings, with the exception of the changes to the fringe benefits tax.
“We don’t like a number of them, but we have to do it to be prudent,” he said.
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Hockey said most of the savings had already been revealed.
“There are no cuts to health and education. There is no increase in the GST.”
Hockey said the Coalition would release its new expenditure and what impact this would have on the budget bottom line closer to the September 7 election date.
However, he detailed the breakdown of the paid parental leave scheme to start in 2015.
It will cost $9.8 billion over its first two years, while scrapping Labor’s existing scheme will save $3.7 billion, and abolishing commonwealth and state governments schemes will save $1.2 billion.
There will also be a $1.6 billion saving from “automatic adjustments to government spending and revenue”.
The remaining $3.3 billion cost will be more than offset by the 1.5 per cent levy on the country’s 3000 largest companies, which will raise $4.4 billion.
“Our numbers and our assumptions are absolutely correct,” Hockey said.
“We have carefully thought through everything.”
Hockey said the Coalition could not repair the budget overnight, but it was making a start.
He said the Coalition had now put more budget information on the table than any Australian opposition in history.
