Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says his government is primed to balance inflationary pressures alongside rising interest rates, describing himself as "economically literate".
The federal government is being pressed to categorically rule out any changes to legislated tax cuts due to come into effect in 2024.
Mr Albanese said his government was weighing the pressures on the budget from the global economy and rising interest rates.
He used a speech on Friday to proclaim that the government had to use its policy levers to complement the Reserve Bank in fighting inflation.
But facing questions over whether he could stand by tax cuts amid already high inflationary pressure, Mr Albanese told reporters he was informed by economics.
"No, that's me being economically literate," he said, when asked if long-term fiscal pressures were being used to lay the groundwork for rescinding the cuts.
He reiterated the government "has not changed its position" on the legislated tax cuts.
"We'll continue to get on with making sure that we deliver a budget that is responsible, that acknowledges the pressures that are on it," he said.
But government ministers have continuously denied ruling out discussions about tinkering with the stage three tax cuts.
It's led to the opposition accusing the government of painting a bleak picture of the economy and budget position to prime the electorate for changes to the so-called stage three tax cuts.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Friday revealed how much spending is expected to grow in the five most costly areas of aged care, disability care, hospitals, defence and debt repayments.
The cost of servicing government debt is expected to climb by 14 per cent each year, outpacing increases in the other big-spending areas.
Dr Chalmers says spending on the NDIS will rise by 12.1 per cent each year, health by 6.1 per cent and aged care by five per cent.
Defence spending will grow by 4.4 per cent per year, on average, over the next four years.
The government has also downgraded its forecasts for global growth and warns the Australian economy and budget will not be spared from the turbulence.
The treasurer expects global growth in 2022 to be 0.75 per cent less than anticipated, and one per cent lower in 2023 than previously forecast.
But opposition frontbencher Simon Birmingham said the treasurer was trying to "rewrite history" in a bid to soften up voters for trimming the stage three tax cuts.
"We have Jim Chalmers ... pretending that spending pressures on the NDIS, aged care, defence are new news," he told Sky News.
"All of those spending pressures were well known and accounted for in budget papers pre-election."
He also accused the treasurer of trying to darken the economic outlook after he took government.
"He's pretending that global inflationary pressures are new news," Senator Birmingham said.
"We were talking about global inflationary pressures pre-election."
Senator Birmingham said the stage three tax cuts were needed more than ever as pressures on household budgets continued to grow.
While there's talk of paring back the stage three tax cuts rather than scrapping them, Greens leader Adam Bandt wants them ditched entirely.
"They start in a couple of years' time. So rather than tinkering around the edges, the most straightforward thing to do would be to just stop them from happening in the first place," he said.
