But her Liberal counterpart says wins for small business, job creation and superannuation offsets for low-income earners were the big talking points from tonight’s budget. 

Labor’s Lisa Chesters said central Victorians lost out to the top end of town in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne in “another shocker” of a budget.

“These tax cuts are aimed at the top end of town – almost 85 per cent of Bendigo workers will miss out on an income tax cut because they earn less than $80,000 per year,” Ms Chesters said. 

“Meanwhile, people who earn more than $300,000 per year will receive at least a $2600 tax cut and people who earn $1 million per year will receive a $16,000 tax cut.

“This budget puts big business over battlers, high income earners before families and undermines Australia’s future.”

On education, Ms Chesters highlighted that there was no new money for LaTrobe University Bendigo campus.

“And only a fraction of the school needs-based funding that was cut from the 2014 and 2015 federal budgets has been restored,” she said.

“This will negatively affect our local Catholic, independent and state schools.”

But the Liberal candidate for Bendigo, Megan Purcell, said 22,657 low-income earners in Bendigo would benefit from superannuation offsets. 

“This budget supports our small businesses and the hard-working members of our community who continue to help us succeed,” Ms Purcell said. 

She said extra defence spending and youth employment programs would drive more job creation in Bendigo. 

“This budget builds on $40 billion of economic growth and 300,000 jobs created by the coalition government,” she said.