Spending flurry as budget update looms

On the eve of federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg handing down his mid-year budget review, the Morrison government has announced a smattering of small spending measures.

But economists expect Mr Frydenberg will still need to cut his economic and wage growth forecasts made in his pre-election budget in April.

"The mid-year budget update will be a humiliating admission from the government that growth is slower, wages are weaker and that most of the debt in the budget at the moment is Liberal debt," shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers told Sky News on Sunday.

"It will be a signed confession that after promising at the election to make the economy even stronger, the Morrison government has actually made the economy even weaker."

Economists expect the 2019/20 growth forecast to be cut to 2.25 per cent from 2.75 per cent with the annual expansion currently running at just 1.7 per cent.

Dr Chalmers also took particular aim at a government that has repeatedly got its wage growth forecasts wrong and will need to be downgraded again.

But Finance Minister Mathias Cormann insists wage growth hasn't stalled under the coalition as claimed by the opposition.

"Real wage growth, which is wages growth above inflation, is stronger than what it was when Labor lost government,'" Senator Cormann told reporters in Perth.

"Our economy continues to grow, our wages continue to grow faster than inflation."

In his Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, Mr Frydenberg is expected to remain on course to deliver a budget surplus in 2019/20, the first since Peter Costello 12 years ago.

Economists doubt the treasurer will take any major action to stimulate the economy with the government intent of returning a surplus.

Labor believes the government could bring forward already legislated tax cuts and increase Newstart for example, while still keeping the budget in surplus.

The government announced it is going ahead with its $100 million recycling investment fund it promised during the federal election campaign.

It is part of a $167 million plan to boost Australia's recycling rates, tackle plastic waste and halve food waste by 2030.

"Australians want to be confident that when we put things in our recycling bin or deliver them to a collection centre, that they will be recycled and not dumped in landfill or simply sent overseas," Environment Minister Sussan Ley said in a statement.

Among a flurry of other initiatives announced on Sunday, the government is investing $30 million towards the revitalisation of the Western Australia Cricket Association (WACA) ground in East Perth.

A further $25 million is being spent to support a multi-commodity deep-water port at the Cape Hardy Port Precinct in South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.

It is also providing $10 million in funding under its Frontier Health and Medical Research Initiative to help researchers push the boundaries in developing new health and medical breakthroughs.

Separately, there is also a further $5 million aimed at allowing Australian researchers and patients to take part in three international clinical trials of new, lifesaving treatments.