Labor and the Coalition are both claiming the upper hand on tackling rising living costs, in their pitches to voters in crucial western Sydney marginal seats.
With Prime Minister Julia Gillard setting up base in Rooty Hill for the week, Treasurer Wayne Swan released an analysis he said showed the average family could lose up to $2300 a year under a coalition government.
However, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott cast doubt on one of the key claims - that the Coalition would scrap the tripling of the income tax-free threshold from $6000 to $18,200.
"No, don't assume that," Mr Abbott told the Nine Network on Monday. "We'll fund them out of savings to unnecessary and wasteful government spending, and we won't do it with a carbon tax."
Mr Swan claims Australians earning less than $80,000 a year would effectively pay more tax under Mr Abbott, with most standing to lose at least $300 a year. This would affect 565,000 people in western Sydney.
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Ms Gillard said Mr Abbott would have some explaining to do when next in western Sydney.
"I think he's going to meet a lot of people who say to him, `actually that schoolkids bonus money does help me ... and that tax cut did help me, Tony, and why do you want to take those things away from me and my family'," she told the Nine Network.
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said the tripling of the tax-free threshold under Labor was a "con".
"The effective tax-free threshold for 2011/12 was $16,000 due to the impact of the low income tax offset (LITO)," he said in a statement.
"When you combine changes to the LITO with the other changes being made as part of the compensation package for the carbon tax, much of the benefit of increasing the tax-free threshold is clawed back."
Ms Gillard, who is due to make a roads funding announcement in western Sydney on Monday, dismissed ongoing claims by the opposition her five-day visit was a stunt. "
Just like when I've come in the past, it's an opportunity to immerse yourself, to get to say hello to people, see what's on their minds," she said.
The prime minister is set to pledge more than $1 billion in federal funding for the $13 billion WestConnex road project, which would complete the missing link near Parramatta, where the M4 finishes, on condition it connects to Sydney's CBD and there is no tolling on the M4.
Mr Abbott is already offering $1.5 billion for WestConnex. However, Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury, whose marginal electorate is at the western edge of the M4, says the federal government wants the NSW government to come up with a better plan for the western Sydney motorway network.
"This WestConnex project doesn't even do what most people, certainly in my part of the world, would like to see it do," he told Sky News, adding it needed to link western Sydney to the city. Mr Bradbury said it took him more than two hours to drive to the CBD last week.
