Prime Minister Tony Abbott has distanced the government from comments by one of his senior economic advisers that the minimum wage is too high and Australia can't afford schools or disability reform.
Maurice Newman, the chairman of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, has criticised the former Labor government, saying its multi-billion dollar national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) and schools funding reforms were economically reckless.
Mr Abbott says he expects "robust advice" from Mr Newman, "but in the end Maurice is one of a range of voices that the government takes very seriously".
"What we are not going to do is break our fundamental commitments to the Australian people," Mr Abbott said in Canberra on Tuesday.
"One of our fundamental commitments was to turn the NDIS from a dream and an aspiration into an affordable and sustainable reality, and we are going to do that.
"We said that we would match the former government's spending commitments over the forward estimates period when it came to school funding, and we'll do that."
Mr Abbott says Labor had left the government with a "shocking fiscal legacy".
"But we'll deal with it in ways which are consistent with the commitments we took to the election," Mr Abbott said.
Mr Newman, who spoke at a business dinner in Sydney on Monday night, also said Australia's minimum wage was high by international standards and its industrial relations system was "dogged by rigidities".
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