Federal budget 2015: Joe Hockey splashes $10b on small businesses, families

The federal government has doled out more than $10 billion to families and small business in a federal budget which aims to stimulate the economy and lift the Coalition's standing in the polls.

Phillip CooreyPolitical editor

Updated May 12, 2015 – 8.49pm, first published at May 6, 2015 – 12.53pm

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The federal government has splashed more than $10 billion on families and small business and put another $1 billion up its sleeve in hidden measures in a federal budget that aims to stimulate the economy, lift the Coalition's standing in the polls and give it the option of an early election.

The government has spent almost every dollar saved in its second budget, meaning the bottom line improves by just $1.6 billion over the five years to 2018-19 and it delays a return to balance to the end of the decade and a surplus to 2021 at the earliest.

Phillip Coorey is the political editor based in Canberra. He is a two-time winner of the Paul Lyneham award for press gallery excellence.