Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has refused to deny that he is the "senior government source" that attacked Treasury anonymously in a news report on Tuesday.
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"Treasury f---ed up," the source is reported to have told the Australian Financial Review about changes to budget calculations.
It means Senator Cormann may have damaged his relationship with Treasury, the government's main economic adviser, as the government struggles to keep its budget sales pitch on course.
Labor senators Sam Dastyari and Penny Wong asked Senator Cormann in Senate estimates on Tuesday if he was the "senior government source" who leaked against Treasury anonymously, criticising it for failing to previously include Future Fund earnings in long-term budget projections, but Senator Cormann did not directly answer them.
The leaking against Treasury followed heated accusations by Labor during Senate estimates on Monday that the government had "cooked the books".
Senator Dastyari: "Did Treasury blunder the accounting treatment of how the Future Fund earnings would bolster long-run earnings projections?"
Senator Cormann: "That is not my assertion and nothing I said yesterday could be interpreted in any way, shape or form [to say that]."
Senator Dastyari: "So you're disagreeing with the 'senior government source' who used language that, I'm not going to use because it's unparliamentary, that Treasury 'something' up? That is not your position?"
Senator Cormann: "Well as we've discussed on a number of occasions over the past week, I don't provide commentary around anonymous commentary."
Economists have been questioning how the Abbott government has been able assume it will post large surpluses from 2020-21.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch chief economist Saul Eslake last month said a changed accounting treatment of Future Fund earnings has allowed the government to bolster its assumed surplus from 2020-21 onwards by including billions of dollars from the fund.
The government's budget papers explain that this will happen, but only in a footnote to a graph.
Little attention has been drawn to it otherwise, besides in the Intergenerational Report, and government ministers did not mention it on budget night.
But then on Tuesday, a "senior government source" was quoted in the Financial Review saying Treasury was to blame for the recent official inclusion of the Future Fund earnings in future long-term surplus projections.
The senior government source said Treasury should have included the Future Fund's annual earnings when preparing 10-year surplus projections in last year's budget, as well as the 2013 and 2014 mid-year budget updates.
In estimates on Tuesday Senator Wong then told Senator Cormann that everyone in Treasury knew it was him who had attacked them anonymously.
But Senator Cormann said he expected Senator Wong to apologise for her "outrageous slur" on Monday that he and the government had "cooked the books."
"Yesterday's story was that we were cooking the books, when it was you who was cooking the books," Senator Cormann said.
The issued had boiled over in Senate estimates on Monday with Senator Wong accusing the government of "cooking the books" by including the changed accounting treatment surreptitiously in its second budget.
"You cooked the books … and you're embarrassed," Senator Wong shouted.
Senator Cormann reminded Ms Wong that the changed accounting treatment was made in Labor's budget update in 2012, and the Coalition thought it was a good decision.
He then sent six tweets, while sitting in Senate estimates, linking to past Labor documents that first made the accounting treatment.
