Labor has ridiculed claims by a senior Turnbull government minister that opposition policies are akin to those of communist East Germany.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, in a speech to the Sydney Institute on Wednesday night, upped the ante against what he said were Labor leader Bill Shorten's politics of envy that had been used by failed socialist leaders.
He accused Mr Shorten of going after success and aspiration by trying to convince those doing it tough to believe "they will be better off only if other people are worse off".
"(Mr Shorten's) rhetoric is the divisive language of haves and have-nots. It is socialist revisionism at its worst," Senator Cormann said.
But his opposition counterpart Jim Chalmers laughed off what he labelled "unhinged hyperbole".
"This is just the latest in a long line of pretty bizarre conspiracy theories from a government that's getting more and more desperate," he told ABC radio on Thursday.
"Last week we were conspiring with the New Zealanders. This week we've got reds under the beds."
Fellow frontbencher Brendan O'Connor said using a Cold War scare campaign was beyond satire.
"It seems Senator Cormann is seeking to match the foreign minister who last week all but declared war on New Zealand to be the silliest minister of the month," he told ABC radio.
Labor MP Tim Watts poked fun on social media, tweeting: "According to the Liberals, Bill Shorten is a British, social-climbing, communist who's trying to steal government in conspiracy with NZ."
Cabinet minister Josh Frydenberg denied the government's attack was desperate.
"I think it's only time that (Mr Shorten) now be seen as an alternative prime minister," he said.
