Voters want the Turnbull government to increase funding for hospitals and schools rather than cut personal income tax.

A majority of voters chose increased spending on healthcare (67 per cent), aged pensions (56 per cent), education (55 per cent) and affordable housing (52 per cent), as their budget priorities for 2018.

They stated their preferences in a Guardian Essential Poll taken just before the May federal budget.

Only 17 per cent nominated personal income tax cuts as the most important issue for the budget to address.

Despite public opinion, a package of tax cuts to be introduced in three stages became the centrepiece of Treasurer Scott Morrison’s budget. When they are finally implemented the cuts will take $144 billion out of the public purse.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), the biggest winners from the tax package when it is fully implemented will be high- income earners:

• A worker on $200,000 will get a tax cut of $7,225
• A worker on $60,000 will get an annual tax cut of $540.

The PBO calculates that men benefit twice as much from the tax cuts during the first two stages 
due to Australia’s gender pay gap, and by nearly three to one after the third stage.

A tax expert from the University of Melbourne Law School, Miranda Stewart, told the Senate’s economics legislation committee that the tax changes were an “inefficient and a retrograde step that undermines the 100 years of progressive tax rate structure in Australia”.

Another analysis, by the Australia Institute, found that wealthy Liberal-held seats were the biggest beneficiaries from the tax cuts, with Malcolm Turnbull’s seat of Wentworth the biggest winner.

A household in Wentworth will receive double the national average from the tax cuts.

Two experts from the National Social and Economic Modelling Centre (NATSEM) – Dr Jinjing Li and Professor Robert Tanton – told the online magazine The Conversation that the tax cuts highlighted the need for a national discussion about how government revenue is spent.

“We can either spend this windfall gain on benefits to high- income earners in the hope that this will flow through spending to everyone else, or maybe we should encourage young people into housing through an increase to the first home owners grant, or increased funding for our schools, universities and health system,” they wrote.