Bill Shorten has proposed new cuts to health, family welfare and business tax breaks, and backflipped on four coalition budget cuts, in a bid to balance the books under a Labor government.
The opposition leader and his finance team on Friday unveiled $105 billion in budget savings over a decade that he says would be delivered by a Shorten government after July 2.
"Quite frankly, if we want to pay for Medicare, for schools, for family-friendly measures, to make sure we can reduce the deficit over time, these are the decisions that have to be made," he told reporters in Sydney.
Mr Shorten announced a reversal of Labor's opposition on higher education changes, backing the tying of the higher education indexation program to the consumer price index with a benefit to the budget of $3.7 billion.
Graduates would also have to pay back debt sooner, with the threshold for study loan repayments being reduced from $54,126 to $50,638.
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Labor would also support a proposed cut in research and development tax breaks, raising $2.8 billion.
New savings, not previously proposed by the government, would include axing access to the private health insurance rebate for natural therapies and freezing private health insurance rebates for a further five years.
As well Labor would reduce the family tax benefit A supplement by 50 per cent for families with an income of more than $100,000.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said all governments needed to ensure family tax benefits were "appropriately targeted".
"This is a continuation of what we have been doing for two years - tough decisions, being up-front," Mr Bowen said.
Shadow finance spokesman Tony Burke said Labor had applied the fairness test to all of its new measures and those of the government that it now backed.
Mr Burke said the coalition needed to justify how it would fill the hole of $23 billion in "zombie cuts" - budget savings not yet passed in parliament and never likely to pass.
"It is a fiscal con that the government is continuing with," Mr Burke said.
Asked whether Labor would continue to back the coalition's cuts if it lost the election, Mr Shorten said: "Let's not be a pessimist - we are aiming to win this election."
