Less than two weeks out from the Federal Budget on May 9, the Treasurer Scott Morrison gave a lunchtime address to the Australian Business Economists in Sydney yesterday.While refusing to be drawn on specifics for any topic raised, the Treasurer rattled through his government's "jobs and growth" and "budget repair" mantras, along with his concern that Australia's tax rate is too high because other OECD countries have dropped their tax rates, or are planning cuts - including the US which has announced it's effectively cutting its corporate rate in half."More favourable tax rates in the US, UK, Europe and Asia puts further pressure on our ability to attract investment and for our businesses to remain competitive," said Morrison."Failure to maintain our tax competitiveness will cost jobs and see investment go offshore."Morrison also reminded the lunchtime crowd of professional economists of what he saw as the government's track records in this area including relaxation of the laws on crowdfunding, and in recognising the importance of the housing sector to the Australian economy."There are the risks in our east coast housing markets that require careful and measured responses," he said, reeling off a few facts: around eighty per cent of Australia's $2.1 trillion household debt is in mortgages; and Australian households are now the fourth most indebted in the OECD as a share of income - behind Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway."However, we should also bear in mind that low interest rates, increasing household assets, and our debt concentration in higher income households, provide some comfort about the serviceability of this debt. The asset coverage on these debts is over five-fold."We are already seeing signs the heat in our housing markets may be coming off, especially in the apartment market."Cooling foreign investor interest, due to tougher foreign investment rules implemented by our Government and capital outflow restrictions in China, are already having an impact. The number of foreign investment applications for residential housing has fallen from 40,000 last year to an expected 15,000 this year," Morrison said.