The Turnbull Government has been warned that it’s risking lower living standards and slower economic growth by putting Australia’s prized AAA credit rating in jeopardy.

Deloitte Access Economics, in its latest Budget Monitor, has spelled out for Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Mathias Cormann what will happen if there is a downgrade on their watch.

The report says:

“The loss of our AAA credit rating can be thought of as a ‘tax on growth’…” (p. 9)

It goes on to estimate a 0.5 per cent drop in living standards and lists other damaging consequences for the economy and family budgets – including higher mortgage repayments, higher inflation, lower wages, lower consumer spending and dramatically lower business investment.

Turnbull, Morrison and Cormann must heed this warning and lock in the AAA rating by ditching their unaffordable tax handouts for big business and millionaires; and adopting Labor’s sensible negative gearing and capital gains reforms.

It’s no wonder the rating agencies are circling when you consider that the Liberals have tripled this year’s deficit and blown out net debt for this year by $100 billion.

Given an improved global economic outlook and the fair and considered measures Labor has put forward, the Liberals have no excuses left to continue their Budget mess.

The fact is the Liberal Party gave up on Budget repair a long time ago with policy decisions actually making the Budget worse – not better – since 2015.

No Budget day accounting tricks will deal with the blow out in net debt on this Government’s watch – a blow out that may further risk Australia’s AAA credit rating.

And the Deloitte Monitor shows company profits rising by 65 per cent during 2016, another reminder of the sheer madness of this Government’s prioritisation of a $50 billion hand out for big business at the same time as it supports a penalty cut for Australian workers who are already grappling with record low wages growth.

This Budget should be all about jobs and helping hardworking families, which is why the Government must not only drop its handouts for the top end of town, but also invest in training, reverse their unfair cuts to Medicare and ditch their cuts to families and pensioners.