As the Liberal-Nationals government lags in the national polls, South Australian Liberal party premier Stephen Marshall was defeated in a landslide state election by Labor's Peter Malinauskas on Sunday night.

While the federal government is adamant the South Australian results do not reflect nationwide sentiments, last week's newspoll showed Labor sitting at a 55-45 lead.

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The question now remains, can the coalition save themselves in the upcoming budget?

La Trobe Bendigo's honorary politics associate Ian Tulloch said it was unlikely, but the government would do their best trying to win over low-middle income earners.

"This is going to be the most difficult budget of Josh Frydenberg's four budgets," he said.

"I would expect that despite what Frydenberg is saying it's going to be a very generous budget."

Mr Tulloch said he thought the South Australian results would have sent shockwaves through the Morrison government.

"They need some clear air now and the only way to get that is a lot of promises," he said.

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"Even though Morrison is saying it's not going to have any surprises, I'd take that with a grain of salt. They're miles behind in the polls and this is their last chance."

Mr Tulloch said the government would be targeting middle-low income earners as they try to win over marginal seats.

"There's going to be no major tax cuts, but there will be some tax cuts targeted at middle to low income earners," he said.

"If I was handing down the budget running into the election campaign staring down what looks like it could be a significant defeat I would be spending a lot of money."

The La Trobe expert also said he was unsure how the government would address the all-consuming cost of living question, arguing that wage increases were generally off the cards in Liberal government budgets.

"Apart from tax handouts, there's not too much they can really do," he said.

"It's very unusual for a Liberal government to promote wage increases."

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A recent royal commission recommended the government increase wages for aged care workers, however the coalition responded that the issue was a Fair Work issue, not a parliamentary one.

In Bendigo, now a safe Labor seat, Mr Tulloch said it would be hard to turn votes the other way, especially since a Liberal candidate has not yet been announced for the region.

"If tax cuts are targeted to low and middle income earners that will definitely have some impacts across the Bendigo region, but Bendigo is a very safe Labor seat," he said.

Bendigo federal MP Lisa Chesters said Bendigo residents needed to see wage increases and lower healthcare costs in the budget.

"Any cash bonus that's in the budget will just be a bribe," she said, "It's an example of how transactional Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg are.

"It's not dealing with the underlying household budget pressures that people are facing.

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"I want to see the government commit to a plan on how they're going to put more money into Medicare so that GP costs can come down for non bulk-billed appointments."

"I want to see cheaper childcare for all families - not just some - and I want a massive increase in funding for aged care."

However, federal MP for Mallee Anne Webster criticised Labor's response, arguing the opposition had a history of promising money that did not exist.

"It's a convenient Labor line, let's just continue to spend taxpayer money as if there were no budget," she said.

"We've just gone through the pandemic with a severe impact on our budget, but we must have budgetary constraints or we will just continue to blow out our debt level."

Ms Chesters said the budget is a question of priorities.

"It's a big budget, but it depends how you spent it," she said.

"There's been JobKeeper rorts, major mistakes in defence manufacturing and the consultancy fees."

Last year, the ABC revealed the federal government spent a billion dollars on consultancy fees in order to subsidise the multi-billion-dollar gas industry, despite it employing just 0.2 per cent of the Australian workforce

"If we just looked at that billion dollar consultancy fee spending, there's so many jobs there," Ms Chesters said.

For now, with a looming election and a tight pandemic budget, Australians don't have long to wait to find out where their taxes will go this financial year.

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