Tony Abbott has declared the budget the only economic plan for Australia after a Senate crossbencher suggested the government may have to bring down an alternative "mini-budget".
Independent Nick Xenophon says the coalition will struggle to get some of the more contentious measures in its budget through the Senate, and may have to go back to the drawing board.
"I don't think it's out of the question that the government might have to go back to the parliament in a few months time with a mini-budget and I don't think that's unreasonable," Senator Xenophon told ABC radio on Wednesday.
The government needs six of the 18 crossbenchers in the Senate for legislation to pass, making it unlikely measures such as the Medicare co-payment and welfare and pension changes will succeed.
But the prime minister said his government was determined to get its economic agenda through parliament "because this is the right budget for these times".
"We have a plan. It is the only plan," he told reporters in Canberra.
"And I keep saying to the Labor Party, we have our plan to deal with your debt and deficit disaster. What is your plan to clean up your mess?"
Senator Xenophon's mini-budget predictions follow calls from lower house independent Andrew Wilkie for the parliament to block what he labelled a "miserable" budget.
"If supply is blocked, then we can go back to the polls where the people can decide this budget and indeed the government's fate," he told parliament on Tuesday night.
The latest Essential poll found 47 per cent of voters would support the opposition blocking the budget.
But Labor has said it will not block supply.
Mr Wilkie said he wasn't trying to force a double dissolution election, he just wanted the government to come up with a better alternative.
He said if Labor, the Greens and the other crossbenchers were serious about opposing the budget, they should join with him.
"Be more than talk," he told reporters.
Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt said Mr Wilkie's call-to-arms was "cute", but "moot", because Labor was clearly not going to block supply.
"But I want to be very, very clear that the Greens are ready to fight a federal election on Tony Abbott's brutal budget anytime he wants one," he said.
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