Finance Minister Mathias Cormann doesn't like Labor using the term "zombie" when referring to $13 billion of unlegislated bills in the budget because he remains confident they will pass through the parliament eventually.
"That is why they are in the budget. If we didn't think we could legislate them, they wouldn't be in the budget," Senator Cormann told Sky News on Sunday.
Some of the measures stretch back to the coalition's first and unpopular 2014/15 budget and have been regurgitated in the government's latest omnibus bill, which also faces opposition from Labor, the Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team.
"These conversations are still live, they are still ongoing, I'm certainly not prepared to put up the white flag," Senator Cormann said of his negotiations on the omnibus bill..
The bill - which makes cuts to welfare, while funding child care reform and the national disability insurance scheme - will be up for debate when the House of Representatives sits on Monday.
However, the government's real challenge will be getting the bill through the Senate, which doesn't sit again until the final two weeks of March.
Senate powerbroker Nick Xenophon opposes the omnibus bill because he doesn't believe welfare cuts should be used to fund NDIS, and instead has proposed raising the Medicare levy.
"That is not the position of the government," Senator Cormann said.
Senator Cormann said once the government knows how much of its agenda it's been able to get through the parliament, it will make judgements on what it can best do to keep getting the budget back into balance as soon as possible.
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