Around a third of voters think the government should have slashed spending even more in last week’s budget, today’s Essential Report shows — even though few think the budget was good for them personally.

One in five voters think the government cut spending too much in Tuesday’s budget, and 21% believe it cut spending by around the right amount. However, 34% believe Treasurer Wayne Swan should have cut spending more, capturing what appears to be a new acceptance of reduced government spending by voters.

And while support for spending cuts reflects voting intention, Greens voters are significantly more likely than Labor voters to think the government should have cut spending more, even if not as strongly as Liberal voters.

Only 13% of voters thought the budget would be good for them personally, a fall compared to last year’s 17% but still up on 2011, when just 11% of voters thought they’d do well from the budget. Just over a third, 36%, thought the budget would be bad for them personally, and 40% thought it would be bad for working people. But despite a big rise in corporate taxes from a crackdown on tax avoidance, 15% of voters thought it would be good for business, with 33% thinking it would be bad, compared to 10%/43% in 2012. One in four voters thought the budget would be good for the economy overall, compared to 34% who thought it wouldn’t — about the same result as in 2012.

The Coalition’s release of its industrial relations policy, which emphasised that an Abbott government would not be returning to WorkChoices, may have actually prompted an increase in the proportion of voters who think it would, from 48% in March back to 51%. This suggests the mere mention of industrial relations encourages voters to assume WorkChoices would be back on the agenda, regardless of what the Coalition promises. Even 28% of Liberal voters don’t believe Tony Abbott won’t go back to WorkChoices. However, the number of voters expressing concern about a return to WorkChoices has fallen slightly: just 26% of voters say they would be very concerned by a return to WorkChoices and 15% say quite concerned. That’s compared to a total concerned level of 43% in March.

And despite the campaign being waged by some News Limited outlets against penalty rates, 81% of voters believe people working outside normal hours should receive higher pay, including 74% of Liberal voters.

On voting intention, Labor’s primary vote lifted a point to 35% and the Greens vote has fallen to 8%. The Coalition’s vote is steady on 48% for a stable 2PP outcome of 55-45% in the Coalition’s favour. While the movement is very small, Labor has now recovered from its position of 33% primary vote a fortnight ago. It’s no budget bounce — there’s no such thing as a budget bounce these days — but the numbers need to keep moving in that direction week-in and week-out for Labor to be competitive.