Budget needs more than a reboot: Shorten

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten reckons the Abbott government's budget needs more than a few "barnacles" removed to get it on an even keel.

He says it's already sunk without a trace.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's cabinet met on Friday ahead of the mid-year budget review due next month.

Millions of dollars worth of measures from the May budget remain stuck in the Senate, while revenues have been hit by a slump in the iron ore price, which extended its fall to a five-year low this week.

Mr Shorten said it is not the first time the government has had to consider a "reboot" of the budget.

"It's not the barnacles on the budget - on this unfair budget - which are impeding it, it's that this unfair budget has sunk without a trace," Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne.

He thinks Mr Abbott should instead start his budget again, saying it is not a question of rebooting it.

"I think it's now come to the point of booting the prime minister out and him taking his unpopular budget with him," he said.

Parliament will hold its final sittings for 2014 over the next two weeks.