Appearing at a Southern Tasmanian child care centre, Mr Shorten said the government was ‘‘short-changing’’ Tasmanian children when it came to child care and school funding.

‘‘The government should take its hands off the 1400 families in the electorate of Lyons who risk losing much of their benefit because of this unfair budget,’’ Mr Shorten said.

Mr Shorten said there would be $680 million less in school funding coming to Tasmania and the average family would be $6000 worse off over three years under the current budget.

‘‘This unfair budget is anti-Tasmanian,’’ Mr Shorten said.

Bass Liberal MHR Andrew Nikolic said Mr Shorten was ‘‘peddling more lies’’.

‘‘Mr Shorten started his quick Tasmanian trip by falsely claiming that funding to education was being cut and his comments on child care costs is another desperate and cynical attempt to scare Tasmanian families,’’ Mr Nikolic said.

‘‘In fact, many families may see an increase in the amount of Child Care Benefit they receive from last month as a result of the above increase in CPI,’’ he said.

Mr Nikolic said education spending in Tasmania was increasing by more than 46 per cent over four years.