The Abbott government's insistence its May budget will not be as harsh as last year's does not appear to be holding sway with the public.
Just weeks from Treasurer Joe Hockey's second budget, consumer confidence has sunk to its lowest level in eight months.
The latest ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence gauge fell 2.3 per cent in the past week, continuing a steady decline since the end of last year.
Mr Hockey was keen to spruik his budget measures on Wednesday as "responsible, reasonable and fair" with a focus on growth, jobs, families and small business.
"We are trying to do more with less money and that is very difficult to do," he told reporters in Canberra.
Mr Hockey will fly to Washington on Saturday to get a better understanding of the global outlook as part of his budget preparations.
He will attend a meeting of G20 finance ministers, as well as the bi-annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank gatherings.
A new analysis by the IMF expects world economic growth to remain below its pre-global financial crisis levels in the medium term because of ageing populations and a lack of business investment.
This will raise new policy challenges in achieving fiscal sustainability, the Washington-based institution warns.
Mr Hockey said there had been significant downgrades to world growth in the past 18 months.
"It is a volatile recovery in the global economy, there's no doubt about that," he said.
He also backed Social Services Minister Scott Morrison's swipe at business groups for criticising the government about its timid approach to economic reform.
Mr Hockey recalled the business community helped argue the case for the GST in the late 1990s and workplace reform in 2007.
Now he says they have joined the armchair critics.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott interpreted the business criticism as an attack on Labor.
"Having created the debt and deficit problem, they're now trying to sabotage the solution," he told reporters in Sydney.
Unsurprisingly, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten did not see it that way, interpreting the message as business wanting to see more progress.
"Labor says we believe in progress as long as it's fair," he said.
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