The Turnbull Government needs to ditch its $50 billion big business tax cut instead of relying on zombie measures to prop up its shaky projected surplus in 2020-21.

The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has today confirmed a projected $42.8 billion black hole in the Budget due to unlegislated measures, which calls into question the Turnbull Government’s wafer-thin projected surplus.

The PBO’s report today shows the projected surplus of “just over $1 billion” announced in MYEFO is nothing more than wishful thinking under the Government’s current plan.

When MYEFO was handed down, the Finance Minister said:

            “In terms of the projected surplus in 2021, projected surplus if you look at the graph that is in the MYEFO document; it will show you that it is about 0.1 per cent of GDP which is just over $1 billion.”

(Mathias Cormann, press conference, 19 December 2016)

However, the PBO report shows the impact of the Government’s unlegislated measures in 2020-21 is actually 0.2 per cent of GDP – double that of the projected surplus.

For the sake of the Budget and all Australians, the Turnbull Government must stop clinging to its cruel and unfair zombie measures, which have no hope of passing the Parliament.

These new figures show the Coalition has no credible plan to bring the Budget back to surplus and protect Australia’s prized AAA credit rating.

Rating agencies have previously highlighted that a further slippage in the return to surplus would jeopardise the credit rating.

If Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison were actually serious about returning to surplus, they would immediately ditch their $50 billion tax gift for big businesses including the big banks.

Only Labor is serious about Budget repair which is fair and doesn’t ask the most vulnerable in our community to carry the heaviest load.