Labor announcing its plan to bring the budget back to surplus

LABOR is set to announce its plan to bring Australia back to surplus, with some spending cuts borrowed from the Coalition.

Labor front bencher Andrew Leigh says the ALP will bring the budget back to surplus in the same year the Coalition has forecast.

LABOR today will announce big spending cuts it hopes will convince voters it has a tough-guy economic side as well as a commitment to fairness.

Families and business are expected to be hit by the “tough, unpopular” decisions to be revealed by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and shadow treasurer Chris Bowen.

And some of the spending cuts will be borrowed directly from the Liberal Party, even though Labor has opposed them for three years.

The Opposition will identify “the hard decisions necessary” to boost their credibility as budget managers and pay for massive election promises, while keeping some distance from Coalition policies.

Labor front bencher Andrew Leigh today said Labor would have savings building over time while a Coalition government would have the cost of expensive corporate tax cuts building over time.

But some Liberal options will be adopted.

However, while the savings, needed to pay for big promises on health and education, will include new measures they also will involve acceptance of some “zombie measures”.

These are among the $18 billion in spending cuts the Coalition has tried to introduce over the past three years but which have been stopped dead in the Senate, which technically they are still live options.

“There are several Abbott-Hockey budget measures that are stuck in the Parliament. Despite not passing the Parliament, they remain in the Budget,” said a Labor campaign spokesman.

Labor would today “confirm its position on these ‘zombie measures’. We will resolve not to oppose some measures, and confirm our continued opposition to others”.

This means Labor will have to confront the fact that some of the revenue in the Budget on which it had based it’s own costings will not be available to it.

The announcements will be the biggest Labor attempt so far in this campaign to gain credibility on plans for “structural repair” of the Budget which would eliminate deficits.

“We’ve said that each year, going out over the Labor budget, deficits will continue to get smaller,” Mr Leigh told ABC radio today.

“The Budget will be back in surplus in the same year as the government (has forecast).”