As the Turnbull government grapples with a blowout to the federal budget of $37.4 billion, federal Treasurer Scott Morrison has announced a 3 per cent "efficiency dividend" for institutions, including the National Gallery, Portrait Gallery, the National Museum and the National Library of Australia.

Mr Morrison announced the cuts on Tuesday.

The cuts come as about $52 million is taken from the arts portfolio over four years.

Another $192 million will be cut from spending on the public service, including $6 million from the budget of the Department of Communications and the Arts. It comes on top of the 2.5 per cent efficiency dividend being enforced across the federal bureaucracy.

The Australian Federal Police will scale back an overseas deployment hub in Majura, saving $30 million but avoiding changes to the scale of overseas policing and AFP support operations. The functions of agencies CrimTrac and the Australian Institute of Criminology will be folded into the Australian Crime Commission as the Attorney-General's portfolio seeks savings of about $70 million.

Mr Barr said some of the cuts sought by the Turnbull government were worse than those considered by former prime minister Tony Abbott and former treasurer Joe Hockey.

"I am obviously concerned in relation to Canberra being singled out, it seems once again, for disproportionate treatment here," Mr Barr told ABC Local Radio. "When you look at the specifics of the further cuts, they do fall more on the ACT institutions than they appear to elsewhere in the context of the federal public service."

Social services cuts were also disappointing. About $2 billion could to be saved in more strict welfare requirements, $930 million from changes to family day care rules, about $650 million from changes to bulk billing for diagnostic tests, $317 million from environmental projects and $472 million in savings from aged care

"When you look more broadly at some of the other policy changes they've announced, they do tend to target the more disadvantaged and lower income Australians, so they'll hurt the less well off in the ACT as well as everywhere else in the country," Mr Barr said.

"The assurance that I got from the former prime minister and the former treasurer that the worst was behind us appears to have been dishonoured by the new Prime Minister and new Treasurer. I did seek those assurances again that what had occurred previously was the last of it for Canberra."

He praised Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for trying to talk up the Australian economy but said the government's actions went "in the opposite direction."

"We have a revenue problem in this country," Mr Barr said.

Opposition Treasury and arts spokesman Brendan Smyth said the ACT government needed to stand up to the federal government to protect the city's interests.

"Andrew Barr has failed to do so, for instance when he failed to stand up to the Rudd government when it cut funding to the national cultural institutions," he said.

"Cutting funding to the national cultural institutions is short-sighted as the arts is one of the main drivers of innovation and technology in general, and a main driver in the Canberra economy specifically."

Mr Smyth called on all governments to support innovation in science, technology, engineering, maths and the arts.