Peter Martin states it directly:

Those sighs of relief are prayers of thanks for a budget that embraced reality: the reality that schools, healthcare, roads, railways, pensions, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the other things that we want need to be paid for.

Except that almost nothing happens immediately except slugging the big banks. Spending, including infrastructure is weighted to the out-years, even beyond the normal four-year projections. Revenue improvement depends on heroic assumptions – $44 billion from income tax bracket creep from higher wages, when wages have actually been falling, more than 40% increase in company tax even though company tax cuts are assumed, an increase of 60% in capital gains tax receipts by 2021. Continue reading Budget 2017: good debt, bad debt infrastructure con? →