Helping Joe Hockey balance his budget means balancing the family budget just got a bit harder.
New fees, cuts to spending and changes to eligibility thresholds across health and family payments announced in the federal budget aren't a hammer blow to household finances, just a turning of the screw.
From July 2015, people will pay $7 to see a bulk-billing GP, and to receive out-of-hospital X-rays and pathology services.
Consumer group Choice says the fee, along with a $5 increase in the maximum cost of medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and safety net changes, means some households will struggle.
"All together, the GP co-payment, cuts to Medicare rebates and changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme co-payments and safety net amount to $4.8 billion over five years that will effectively be transferred to household budgets," Choice said in a statement.
Family payments will also be smaller for most people, most significantly for those on more than $100,000 a year who, from July 2015, will not receive Family Tax Benefit B.
The upper threshold for the $55-a-fortnight base rate of Family Tax Benefit A will be frozen until 2017.
End of year supplements will also be trimmed back: for FTB-A it falls from $726.35 per child to $600 per child from July 2015, while for FTB-B it drops from $354.05 per family to $300.
For a dual-income couple earning $82,560 between them, changes between now and 2017 will see their total government payments fall from $5136 a year to $4222 a year, although the government estimates their total income will rise due to average wages growth of three per cent.
In Mr Hockey's Australia, where people are "lifters not leaners", the dependence of so many people on FTB-B came as a revelation, the treasurer said.
"Pensions are a wage replacement - family payments are a supplement to primary income, so yes we are moving on family payments now," he said.
The budget papers stress that there are still 16 payments available to families, ranging from FTB-A worth up to $5840 a child to the Energy Supplement, worth $113 a year.
Mr Hockey insists all families are sharing the budget privations.
When asked if a permanent co-payment for seeing a doctor was fair, while a two-per-cent levy on high income earners is only for three years, Mr Hockey said everyone had to make their contribution.
"As far as I'm aware, higher income earners will have to pay $7 as well," he said.
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