The Howard government may have been prolifigate but at least in its last 9 years of government it produced a significant positive headline cash balance every year.

How can a government be regarded as economically conservative when with a 3+% growth rate and unemployment at 5% it racks up a budget deficit of $40 billion. The fact that the majority of Australian economic commentators are saying this is not a problem defies belief.

You have to also start to worry about the forward estimates of Treasury. The track record of their forecasting over the past two years has been woeful.

I bet Eddie Groves was saying the same thing to his board and bankers: Don't worry about our negative cash flows now, in three years we will be at cash flow break even.

I call it Queensland accounting.

Reflections on the budget are useless when a large number of promises have been broken from previous commitments. Why should we believe that this Government will be economic conservatives when they make Whitlam look good. Only the gullible would believe this Government yet again. It took a long time for the Libs to pay off the previous Labour love affair with debt and no doubt will take a long time to pay off the current mobs debt. Trust is something that is earned and they certainly have not earned that right.

Funy didn't hear complaints last year when the government took the plunge and went into debt to cover the fall in tax receipts and prop up the economy. If they had not acted then unemployment would have been probably 7% and growth at 1.5%. They have shown their intentions in this budget but now after we have been yelled at by Abbott for months we don't believe them any more. The forecasts might have been a bit optimistic but last years were pessimistic so where does it stand. If things come back as strongly as the forecasts predict then we are in surplus in 3years and out of debt in not to many years after. Not a high price to pay for avoiding the pain and suffering that is happening in countries like the UK.
The governments problem is administration of programs. To many problems with fine detail. Should they get these issues under hand they will have some big successes in health and education to crow about.
It is fair enough to criticise the governments stuff up's but to run everything down because its the in thing is as senseless as the ultra high popularity rating Rudd had 18 months ago.

Dear Saul, impressive credentials however, I doubt you would last two minutes in one of my quarterly reviews.

Let me see if I got the economics right.

At a time when Kevin Rudd had the $10 Billion in CPRS revenue “in the bag” thanks to Malcolm Turnbull. Our Government began a populist spending spree and racked up huge debts on the nations’ behalf.

Having failed to wait until his CPRS chickens had hatched, he counted them anyway. The CPRS failed and was withdrawn, leaving him with a $10 Billion annual hole in revenue.

Now we have another knee jerk tax on resources, which I think includes energy resources so we can expect energy prices to be on the increase. All in order to plug the revenue gap left by the CPRS so we can pay off the debt they created in the first place?

Then we have a “firm” plan to return to surplus 3 years early, and this is based upon “variable” income streams? Yeh, right.

Your “generally modest and well targeted” budget would, in my world, be a severe CLM (career limiting move).

Thank you Mr. Estlake, Please leave by the side door and don’t forget to take your multi-media extravaganza with you.

Wonderful stuff.

Considering the string of deviations from their previous budgets, the Rudd administrations crowing of fiscal responsibility is a little premature. Even then the only reason the budget balances is the new mining super tax. The budget as yet is only worth the paper it is printed on, as it is a promise by those that have a shocking record of fidelity.

The age old recipe of Labor to tax and spend is the reason that inflation and interest rates have generally been higher under Labor than Liberals. While they are not there yet, it looks as though they will soon break recent records.