Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says Australians struggling with rising bills want more help than a meagre “70-cents-a-day” tax cut, as he prepares to reveal his cost-of-living policy.

Dutton will deliver his reply to the federal budget on Thursday and has already flagged a major announcement on fuel prices, after Labor used the pre-election budget to announce a two-phase tax cut.

Dutton is expected to promise the Coalition would halve the fuel excise for 12 months, lowering the rate on petrol and diesel from about 50 cents to 25 cents a litre.

Labor’s tax cuts passed Parliament in a late sitting on Wednesday. The Coalition voted against them, saying they were too little, too late for struggling Australians.

Under the plan, taxpayers will save up to $268 on their tax bills in 2026/27 and up to $536 every year after that.

“What’s obvious here is that a 70-cent-a-day tax cut in 15 months’ time is just not going to help families today who are really suffering,” Dutton said.

“We do want to help families address the cost-of-living crisis, we do want to address the energy crisis.”

Some voters seemed equally unimpressed at the scale of the tax cut as power bills soar.

In Melbourne, Ravi Velu is trying to find work, after a personal issue forced him to quit his electrician job.

Skyrocketing cost-of-living pressures have spurred the 43-year-old from St Albans, in Melbourne’s north-west, to pawn his belongings and move in with his partner and her family.

“I’m no spring chicken anymore, especially trying to get back into the workforce and dealing with personal situations, it’s hard,” Velu said.

He said the tax cuts – which he won’t benefit from as he is unemployed – will make no difference. Velu said he was considering voting for someone who took seriously the thousands of people in his situation.

In Tasmania, Meiko Smith owns a hair salon in Devonport. She said costs had nearly doubled since the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We used to have price hikes every two or three years. Now we’re getting it every year,” she said.

Smith said the government’s tax cuts would do nothing for the cost-of-living crisis.

“Because an election is coming up, they’re making promises just to get everyone to vote [for Prime Minister] Albanese,” she said.

“It just all seems to be a lot of talk.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the cuts were “modest in isolation but substantial when combined with all of the ways that we are helping”.

The opposition voted against the cuts, with shadow treasurer Angus Taylor chastising Labor for producing a budget “for the next five weeks, not the next five years”, referring to the imminent election campaign.

But Chalmers attacked him for voting against tax relief on the same day it was revealed that inflation has continued to slow.

“Spare us the lectures about inflation and living standards. If you really cared about the cost of living, you would have voted for our tax cuts,” Chalmers said.

Taylor didn’t rule out the Coalition offering larger tax cuts. But the opposition has so far been tight-lipped on tax relief or the economic policies it will offer voters at the election.

It has pledged to fast-track gas approvals and extend ageing coal-fired power plants to reduce electricity prices in the medium term, in a move slammed by environmental groups.

Speculation is increasing Albanese will call the election as early as Friday, firing the starting gun on a minimum 33-day campaign that will end with voters going to the polls in May.

-AAP