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Audit bleak for families: Labor

Ordinary life in Australia will become a struggle for working families if the government adopts the sweeping cuts recommended by its commission of audit, Labor says.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten dubbed the audit Tony Abbott’s plan to “put up your taxes and to cut your services”.

It showed the prime minister was out of touch and driven by “twisted priorities”, he said.

The commission’s report recommends boosting the pension age, introducing a $15 co-payment to see the doctor and slowing the rollout of the national disability insurance scheme.

Despite the government not yet revealing which of the 86 recommendations it will adopt in its May budget, Mr Shorten labelled the report a “blueprint for Tony Abbott’s broken promises”.

“If he gets his way, Tony Abbott will turn the most basic things in life – education, healthcare, support for older Australians – into a massive everyday struggle for working families,” he told reporters in Sydney.

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said budgets were an indication of the values of a government: “The values of a government when it comes to who pays the price for their decisions”.

“And their values and their priorities are wrong,” he said.

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