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CANBERRA, Feb 1 Asia Pulse - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has warned of "pain and difficulty" for Australians in this year's budget as he declared inflation to be public enemy No. 1.
Mr Rudd promised that Labor would keep its promise of A$31 billion (US$27.77 billion) in tax cuts, despite fears the cuts will feed inflation.
But he said the government would be ruthless in the May 13 budget, promising to cut spending by about A$4 billion to deliver a surplus of A$18 billion.
"I'm sure there's going to be pain and difficulty emerging from some of these cutback decisions," Mr Rudd told the Fairfax Radio Network today.
"I think there'll be a fair bit of general difficulty arising from these cuts but let's be frank, the overall problem which working families are going to face is if inflation is let loose and starts to rip into people.
"And we have an overriding national economic responsibility not only to declare it as public enemy No.1 but to launch a coherent fight against it.
"If our predecessors had started this ...
Source: HighBeam Research, AUSTRALIAN PM CALLS ON UNIONS TO SHOW WAGE RESTRAINT.