TONY Abbott, Australia's feisty prime minister, seems to be having difficulties handling the backlash to his budget proposals. First, his ruling coalition's standing in opinion polls suffered a huge hit. His own popularity rating, never very high to begin with, went below that of the opposition Labor Party leader. Then he was caught out on several gaffes: He tried to dismiss sagging opinion polls by saying that the same thing had happened the last time his coalition had introduced an austerity budget in the 1990s. That simply was not true; in fact an austerity budget under previous Liberal Party leader John Howard actually produced a rise in the polls for his party.

Then he was filmed winking while trying to soothe a distraught grandmother about new imposts on her medical services during a radio show. The clip immediately went viral on social media and he was condemned for being callous about her plight. Then he tried to calm university students by saying that current students would not be affected by deregulated fees, only incoming students. This was then shown as being wrong.

Australian taxpayers are not, on the whole, averse to spending cuts. What seems to have caught them by surprise this time is the scale of the cuts and new imposts. Experts estimate that all families will lose something under the current proposals - except those whose incomes are in the top 10 per cent bracket. The government also seems bent on shifting to a "user pays" system for previously universally government-provided services, such as medical services and higher education. At the same time, the rich get to keep their tax benefits when they pay into their own pension schemes. Tax breaks for mortgages and businesses also remain untouched. On top of the taxpayer backlash, Mr Abbott's proposals have riled every state government because some A$80 billion (S$92.6 billion) have been cut from future health and education funding - services that are delivered by state governments under the federal system. The reasoning behind the move seems to be that the shortfall would force the states to ask that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate be raised to 12 or 13 per cent from the current 10 per cent. The state leaders will then take the blame for the rate rise. However, so far no state leader has asked for a GST rate hike. Some MPs from Mr Abbot's own party have suggested that the GST be extended to goods that are now exempt - such as medical and educational services - as a way of covering the shortfall.