Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen has accused Malcolm Turnbull of speaking with a "forked tongue" when it comes to personal income tax cuts, as Australia's peak welfare body warned against raiding the government revenue "piggy bank" to pay for them.
The prime minister insists his government can deliver personal tax relief to Australians at the same time as bringing the budget back into balance.
Mr Turnbull was out and about on Wednesday pledging that the coalition's next tax priority is to lower middle-income tax rates, as he faced questions about how it fits in with surplus goals.
"You have to do two things at the same time - sometimes three or four - and what we have already demonstrated is that we are bringing the budget back into balance," he told the Seven Network.
Treasurer Scott Morrison, speaking for the first time since the prime minister flagged the cuts in a speech on Monday, says the government has been working through the detail of delivering tax cuts for some time, although he gave no indication when people see that benefit.
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He said it has been a long time since any Australians have had a decent pay rise and this has been a real pressure on them.
"We wanted them to know as we went into Christmas that our first priority in taking the budget back to balance is to ensure we can give them some relief when it comes to their personal income tax," Mr Morrison told ABC radio.
But Mr Bowen said Mr Turnbull is talking about tax cuts when people will be paying more through the Medicare Levy hike and if he was serious about easing the tax burden he would stop this increase.
"He speaks with forked tongue ... This is such a hypocritical government," Mr Bowen told reporters in Sydney on Wednesday.
ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie said government revenues needed to be strengthened to pay for essential services like the NDIS and health care.
"Now is not the time to raid the public revenue piggy bank for another round of unfunded tax cuts," Dr Goldie said in a statement.
''As surely as night follows day, an unfunded tax cut now will be followed by cuts to spending on health, education and social security."
Quizzed on whether he had been approached by the prime minister to find extra savings, Social Services Minister Christian Porter said he was always looking at ways to make the welfare system sustainable.
He said the government has been able to slow the rate of spending growth that was projected under Labor to the tune of $83 billion.
"The answer to the question of how would you pay for middle income earning tax cuts in Australia is to say that it would have been utterly impossible to ever do anything like that if you'd had to spend an extra $83 billion on welfare," he told the National Press Club.
