Opposition Leader faces performance scrutiny as he hits Government made vulnerable by an unpopular Budget

TONY Abbott was a ruthless opposition leader. Now in the same position, Bill Shorten will today prove whether he has same fire. And whether it can revive Labor.

The Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten in Melbourne last week ahead of the Budget.

TONY Abbott spent four years being a ruthless and effective Opposition Leader. Tonight we will see if Bill Shorten was taking notes.

Mr Shorten, now Opposition Leader, will give his formal Budget reply speech to Parliament and commit Labor to voting against the proposed $7 Medicare co-payment, the return of petrol excise indexation, and changes to pension payments.

However It will vote for the two per cent deficit levy on those with an income above $180,000 a year.

That will be the official line. The Opposition Leader also will be under scrutiny to see if he has the measure of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister.

Abbott and Shorten all smiles the morning after the Budget was handed down.

Mr Abbott was relentless and disciplined in his attacks on the Labor governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, which he pounded until their electoral support crumbled.

Now he is the vulnerable Prime Minister after an unpopular Budget delivered Tuesday night and the stage is set for Mr Shorten to demonstrate whether he can produce a Labor revival.

The Government is preparing to condemn Mr Shorten for doing what it did in Opposition. Education Minister Christopher Pyne called the Labor leader “Australia’s number 1 whinger” and demanded he offer positive policies and stop being “all complaint and no responsibility”.

Today Mr Shorten made clear he would concentrate on the Government’s credibility rather than emphasise alternative policies.

“Before the last election, Mr Abbott said that there would be no new taxes, no cuts to pensions, that Medicare would be safe,” Mr Shorten told the Seven network.

“Now what’s happened is that for low income families and for the middle class of Australia, they’re finding out that their family payments are being chopped, they’re finding out they have to pay taxes to go to the doctors.”

Shorten will formally reply to the Budget tonight.

Labor has pulled up well short of threatening to block supply, the vote which triggered the constitutional crisis of 1975.

Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek said the Budget meant a family on $95,000 a year will be $5000 a year worse off because of the changes to the Family Tax Benefit provisions, the Medicare co-payment, rising petrol pries removal of the School Kids Bonus and the extra cost on filling prescriptions.

Originally published as Opposition Leader faces performance scrutiny as he hits Government made vulnerable by an unpopular Budget