Treasurer Scott Morrison won't be throwing money at the health system should the coalition secure a majority government, as he believes is likely.
Vote counting continued on Wednesday and it could be the end of the week before a winner is officially declared.
Analysing the election result, Mr Morrison concedes there were serious issues in the 2014 Abbott government budget Labor drew on for its "disgraceful" Medicare scare campaign.
But he said the health system can't just be a "money pit".
"Just throwing more and more money at it isn't going to deliver the viability that is necessary that people can have confidence in," he said.
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Mr Morrison again attacked Bill Shorten for his "dishonourable and deceitful" Medicare scare campaign, saying the Labor leader ran it because he had no economic plan.
Mr Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull met Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens to "discuss economic developments", according to a tweet by the prime minister.
The meeting came a day after the central bank board agreed to leave the cash rate at a record low 1.75 per cent, noting the recent volatility in financial markets from Britain's decision to leave the European union, but made no mention of Australia's own political uncertainty.
The Labor leader said Mr Turnbull didn't have much of a mandate if he scraped home with a win, leaving the budget in "disarray".
"This budget won't stand the test of ... parliamentary scrutiny," Mr Shorten told reporters in Launceston.
Free-market think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, says any deals the winning party may have to make to secure government should come under the independent scrutiny of the Parliamentary Budget Office.
"The danger from budget concessions for the crossbench is that the core policy challenge of budget repair is put off even longer," senior fellow Mikayla Novak says.
As it is Dr Novak warns the risk of the nation losing its triple-A credit rating resulting from a hung parliament would add at least a quarter of a per cent to the government's debt interest payments or an extra $1 billion a year.
Such warnings came as former Treasury secretary Ken Henry blamed the coalition and Labor governments for failing to show leadership in their approach to economic reform.
Writing in The Australian, Dr Henry - now chairman of National Australia Bank - says politicians have convinced themselves Australia's challenges are in the distance when they are not.
"Most Australians know ... that the budget is unsustainable and that a government that refuses to address the quality of the tax system is not going to fix the problem," he says.
