Budget like a fire brigade knocking down fences as it fights fiscal blaze, says PM Tony Abbott

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has described the budget as a "fire brigade" putting out a fiscal fire, as he battles to sell the tax hikes and billions of dollars in spending cuts announced last week.

Mr Abbott has taken his post-budget sales tour to Victoria, where he cancelled a visit to Deakin University due to security concerns ahead of expected student protests.

Acknowledging the backlash to the budget measures which showed up in dire polls for the Coalition earlier this week, the Prime Minister said he intended to improve his Government's standing, but the budget was not about being popular.

"You see, we had a fire, and the budget is the fire brigade. And sure, sometimes the fire brigade knocks over a few fences in order to put out the fire. But if you've got a fire you've got to put it out," he told 774 ABC Melbourne's Jon Faine.

Later, he said the Government had put itself in "political jeopardy" to do what was right, even to the extent of losing the next federal election.

"First-term governments are not invulnerable and obviously governments can lose elections. No doubt about that," he told Fairfax Radio.

But he said the budget pain now may pay off in the form of tax cuts in a second-term Abbott government.

"I would like to be in a position to offer tax cuts in our next term," he said.

"At the moment I'm certainly not guaranteeing that or promising it, but the whole point of getting the budget under control now... is so that we can give tax cuts in the not too distant future."

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen says the budget has revealed the Government's values, and Australians "don't like them".

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Budget like a fire brigade knocking down fences as it fights fiscal blaze, says PM Tony Abbott