Treasurer Scott Morrison dumps unicorns as he maintains warning there is no quick solution to Budget problems

FROM unicorns to “pixie horses”, Treasurer Scott Morrison has used some fantastical language when describing the Budget.

Barbie Lila the unicorn from

THE unicorns were trotted out of the national economic debate today so Treasurer Scott Morrison could bring on the pixie horses.

Mr Morrison today made the fantasy livestock switch as he continued to give a broad outlines of government economic policy in the face of demands for specific policies.

Mr Morrison told Melbourne’s 3AW he was being honest with voters in telling them there was no quick fix and there was no room for “big increases in new spending”.

“I can sell them a fantasy, as other treasurers have. (Unicorns), whatever you want to call it,” he said.

“Whatever you want to call it … Pixie horses, whatever your preferred analogy is.

“But I’m not going to spin the public a line that there is a simple answer to getting expenditure down. It’s a long hard, drilling through hardboard process.”

The government is battling Labor accusations it is dithering on economic policy while Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mr Morrison are insisting broad objectives are being set out before the Budget in two and a half months.

The Treasurer said the national economy needed a government that was “sober, and responsible” in difficult economic times, not claims of a “silver bullet” solution.

And he took a poke at former colleagues Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey by confirming he had to start the tax review process from scratch six months ago.

“It was only last September when we started the approach of looking at superannuation, the GST or other things like that. Those issues were not under consideration before September last year,” he said.

“It’s not as if they were beavering away at them for two years before that. These issues only came into consideration in September last year.”