Labor's treasury spokesman has intensified the opposition's attack on the 2017 Budget.
Chris Bowen has addressed the National Press Club, seeking to draw a clear distinction between the two major parties.
He says Scott Morrison's Budget failed to take tough action on housing affordability.
"Few, if any, parts of our economy are as impacted as housing by government policy levers. And this government refuses to use those levers. The fact is that government policy as it stands makes housing less, not more, affordable. Around 50 per cent of recent housing purchases in Australia have been by investors, which is singularly unsurprising when you consider that we have the most generous property tax concessions in the world."
He says a Labor Government would also increase the top income tax rate to 49.5 per cent until the Budget returns to surplus.
Mr Bowen told the ABC that's fairer than the government's half-percentage-point rise in the Medicare levy, which would apply to nearly all taxpayers.
"Both sides will go to the next election with personal tax rises, let's be frank about that. But ours will be fairer and they'll apply in a more calibrated and progressive fashion."
But the government's special minister of state, Scott Ryan, has told Sky News the opposition is playing politics.
He says the income tax system is fair already.
"The top 5 per cent of income-earners pay nearly a third of all income tax. We have a highly progressive tax system. And what Labor's trying to do is to mislead people into saying tax the rich, tax the people you don't know, and somehow the Budget will magically come into surplus. Well, their record shows it doesn't."
Meanwhile Malcolm Turnbull is not backing down from his fight with the big banks.
He's urging the Big Five not to pass on the cost of a new levy, and says the consumer monitor will know if they do.
"We will certainly know what the banks do. They will have to declare what changes they are making, if any. The ACCC is monitoring their conduct very carefully. They are certainly able to absorb this levy themselves."
Labor won't vote against the banking levy but are critical of it.
Chris Bowen says he's open to a Senate inquiry into the new levy, suggesting it might be also applied to foreign banks, not just the biggest five Australian banks identified by the government.
"Why are big foreign banks exempt that are operating in Australia, that are competing with Australian banks? It could be called reverse protectionism."
