(Transcript from World News Radio)
The federal government now faces the task of getting its budget through the Senate - and the uncertainty of the voting intentions of eight Independent Senators.
And some of the Independent Senators have already indicated there could be trouble ahead for the government.
Van Nguyen reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
Treasurer Joe Hockey's second budget has been met with some concerns by Independent Senators.
Liberal Democratic Senator David Leyonhjelm has told Sky News, the Government should have gone for fresh spending cuts.
"They're talking about returning to surplus 2019/20. That's highly contingent on a whole lot of questionable assumptions and they're also assuming that some of the measures are already looking shaky in the Senate and are not going to get through."
Senator Leyonhjelm says Australia's economy won't be able to return to surplus at this rate.
"We are suffering seriously from bracket creep. We're going to have low and middle income earners paying high rates of tax, highly politically unpopular. Frankly, I don't think they're going to get away with it, either side of government, no matter who's in power won't cop the kind of tax rates that we're going to have to have."
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon agreed, telling ABC, he's very skeptical of the Treasury's figures.
"Those budget assumptions in terms of the deificit being reduced to the extent that it is and revenue assumptions are very courageous. I just can't see how they're going to get there. Very contingent on a whole range of measures."
As for the budget measures themselves, Senator Xenophon has a mixed response.
"I think the government has retreated from some of their harsher measures. I like the small business concessions. I think that will be good in terms of jobs growth. I think small businesses are engine drivers of economic growth. I'm very deeply concerned that there's no commitment yet to build the submarines here in Australia. That's a huge issue in my home state of South Australia with national implications for ship building particularly in Victoria and New South Wales. I don't quite understand why the government is prepared to spend five billion dollars to develop the Northern Infrastructure Fund which I don't have an issue with as much, but it seems that the southern states, particularly Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania may well be left behind with looming job losses in the auto sector so they are real concerns of mine."
Another Independent Senator who believes the Budget needs improvement is Jacqui Lambie.
She's indicated to the ABC, she's dissatisfied with several aspects of what Treasurer Joe Hockey announced.
"I love the small business measures. However he's going to spoil it if he doesn't leave the family tax B alone because a lot of that family tax B is for lower income families and they spend it in their local communities in small business. So I think that unless he leaves that family tax B there, there's going to be a problem with that. I didn't see anything on higher education. I found that quite daunting. I think that it's very important that we educate our kids for the future and I think that there's still missed oppotunities where we could have saved money."
Liberal Democratic Senator David Leyonhjelm describes this year's Budget as vastly worse than last year's - saying the government should have aimed to achieve a surplus.
"Last year they had a serious go at returning to surplus. They got knocked back in the Senate on a lot of stuff but at least they had a go last year. This year they're not even trying and might I say that also, they skipped it because they could have cut through the appropriation spills and that won't be blocked in the Senate and they have avoided, they've missed that opportunity."
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