Australians are being promised a budget surplus in the coming financial year regardless of who they vote for in the federal election.
But Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten have little more than a week to convince undecided voters that they can be trusted to deliver on their promises and ease the cost of living.
Labor is unveiling its policy costings on Friday, showing it expects to make budget savings of $154 billion over the next decade by cracking down on what it says are tax loopholes for the "top end of town".
That will help get the budget in the black in 2019/20, with a surplus of one per cent of GDP by 2022/23, the costings are expected to show.
The savings, achieved through five main tax reforms, would also be used to fund election promises.
They include better funding for hospitals and schools, the Medicare cancer plan, cheaper childcare, a pensioner dental plan, roads and rail projects and tax cuts for 10 million workers.
Five areas of tax reform - dividend imputation, negative gearing and capital gains tax, trusts, multinationals and accountant deductions and superannuation concessions - will raise $154 billion over 10 years.
But Liberal campaign spokesman Simon Birmingham said 1989 was the last time Labor delivered a budget surplus.
"Many Australians today are going to hear the Labor Party claiming that Labor will deliver bigger surpluses and they will see pigs flying through the sky," he told Nine's Today on Friday.
