Sydney--Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is promising a "measured, responsible and fair" national budget on Tuesday, flagging support for families and small businesses after almost losing his job in the backlash over last year's plans.
While the first budget of his conservative government was focused on repairing the deficit, Abbott stressed that this year he was focused on "jobs, growth and opportunity".
"This will be a budget that is prudent, frugal, responsible," he said, going as far as to call it "dull".
"This is a budget that will involve structural change, but they will be much less drastic, they'll be much less drastic structural changes than the ones that were in last year's budget."
After announcing deep cuts to federal welfare and spending last year to rein in a ballooning deficit, the government was hit hard in the polls.
Abbott's position was questioned as the public became frustrated with policy missteps. He survived a challenge to his leadership in February and has since taken a more cautious approach.
National Australia Bank chief economist Alan Oster said the budget would be about "doing things that aren't very controversial".
"My expectation would be that you are probably going to get bracket creep essentially being the main factor that gets the budget deficit down as you go forward," he told AFP.
"Bracket creep" is where wage rises meant to adjust for inflation can bump workers into higher tax brackets.
The government said at the 2014 budget it wanted to reduce the then deficit from Aus$49.9 billion (US$39.5 billion) to Aus$29.8 billion this year.
But with some of the government's planned cuts still stuck in the upper house Senate, economists project it will remain fairly large with investment bank Goldman Sachs forecasting a 2014-15 deficit of Aus$48 billion, falling slightly to Aus$43 billion in 2015-16.
AFP
