If Treasurer Scott Morrison's attempt to embarrass Labor over its costings back hole has done nothing else, it's flushed out the opposition on two earlier key promises.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen on Thursday confirmed a Labor government would not restore the schoolkids bonus - due to end in July - or reverse government changes to the age-pension assets test because it can't afford them.
The cost of the two measures totals $8 billion.
The treasurer, who will face-off against Mr Bowen in a National Press Club debate on Friday, accused Labor of staging a cynical and deceitful campaign against both measures.
And it still meant that Labor was spending more than it was saving.
"It's not a question of whether there's a black hole when it comes to Labor's unfunded spending, it's just a question of how big it is," Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra.
Earlier in the week, Mr Morrison claimed Labor had a $67 billion black hole in its costings.
He arrived at those figures by calculating that Labor's $16 billion in announced savings and increased taxes falls short of the $18 billion of government measures blocked in the Senate.
Add to that $30 billion of Labor's promises so far and $35 billion of government legislation it has said it would reverse in the past.
The latter figure was subject to the opposition changing its mind on some measures.
Aside from the schoolkids bonus and pension assets test, Labor has disputed the $20 billion cost of overturning the government's cuts to foreign aid.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten defended Labor's decision, saying that while the pension changes were unfair, the budget position had deteriorated over the past three years to the extent that Australia's triple-A credit rating was under threat.
But Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said there was not one Labor policy which will create jobs or drive economic growth, unlike his plan that will create jobs and growth "right around the country".
However, new figures suggest next Wednesday's quarterly economic growth figures won't be that hot.
Capital expenditure tumbled by 5.2 per cent in the March quarter, including a 12 per cent slump in mining investment as remaining resource projects wrap up.
Coupled with Wednesday's weak construction data, it indicates that the economic tempo won't be enough to match the annual growth rate of three per cent seen in 2015.
Even an optimistic quarterly outcome of 0.8 per cent at one end of economists' forecasts would still leave the annual rate at 2.8 percent.
At the other end of the scale, one economist expects the economy expanded by just 0.4 per cent in the first three months of the year.
