Tony Abbott set to back massive ALP spending cuts in Budget Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in Question Time in the House of Representatives Chamber, Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Smith Kym Source: Herald Sun TONY Abbott is likely to back all of Labor's $43 billion in spending cuts if elected, including scrapping the baby bonus, with a special bill to legislate any Labor cuts that don't make it through parliament before the election. The Daily Telegraph has learnt shadow treasurer Joe Hockey and opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb argued internally that the finances were in such a poor state a Coalition government could not afford to reject Labor's proposed savings. However they have not yet decided whether to hold a mini-budget and repeat Peter Costello's 1996 slash-and-burn program to cut Labor government debt and spending programs even further. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will tonight make his Budget reply speech with what sources claim will be a "sombre" assessment. He has reportedly pulled his MPs into line after an angry response to their mocking of Treasurer Wayne Swan's Budget speech on Tuesday. "People are worried at the moment, and they think the Budget is in crisis," one senior Liberal MP said. They don't want to see us treating the Budget as a joke. Coalition sources yesterday said Mr Hockey was pushing to have all the Labor cuts adopted and, if elected in September, could bundle into one piece of legislation all Labor's spending cuts that don't get passed in the four remaining weeks of parliament. It would be called the Labor debt savings bill and would include what is left of the $30 billion of Mr Swan's proposed savings yet to be legislated. Mr Swan has taunted the opposition, calling on them to oppose his saving and spending measures, in a political manoeuvre to try to wedge Mr Abbott into backing the cuts to pay for the DisabilityCare reforms. Mr Abbott has refused to say what the Coalition might do in government. But senior Coalition sources last night said they were almost certain they would not oppose the cuts. "We are very conscious of the fiscal position," a senior Liberal source said. Basically, we can't afford to oppose any of them. And I'd be surprised if we did oppose any of them. One of the problems is that many of the savings booked by the government won't get passed before the election. There is concern that we will have to take some serious measures to deal with this. Mr Abbott yesterday said his Budget reply would map out a "better way" for Australia. He also promised to produce an honest document. "People will have to wait until after the pre-election economic and fiscal outlook for a full list of our spend and saves," he said. But we've already announced quite a number of tough saves, like the discontinuation of the school kids bonus because it's a cash splash with borrowed money. We will be steadily announcing more things as time goes by and, without making commitments about the specifics of (tonight), people will be, I think, much more in the picture about where they're going after (tonight) than where they were after listening to the Treasurer. Mr Abbott, while backing the national disability insurance scheme, is unlikely to commit to the same level of funding as the government has proposed. And he is unlikely to commit to any funding model for Gonski education reforms, which he has been critical of, leaving room for more spending cuts by the Coalition. Mr Robb yesterday signalled there was a view within the Coalition that it had to adopt the Labor savings. " (The Budget) does certainly identify the magnitude of the task that whoever gets government after September 14 will have, because we have got a sea of red ink going off as far as the eye can see," he said. We have got a lot of decisions to make - including what we do with what Labor has advocated over the last 24 hours. Mr Hockey yesterday accused the Treasurer of refusing to answer whether the country's debt cap would have to be raised even further, claiming net national debt would peak at $360 billion if Labor continued its current levels of spending - $60 billion above the current debt cap ceiling. Mr Swan accused Mr Hockey of using a "market" value of debt rather than the face value, and denied the debt cap would be breached.