The odd thing about the government's handling of the budget was...

The odd thing about the government's handling of the budget was that they essentially set it up as a one day cricket type run chase (IE: We will reach this target by this date), then didn't chase. No matter how much the "Run rate required" rose, they didn't set out after the target. When they fell behind by $10 billion in the first post GFC budget (from memory $50 billion deficit, against $40 billion promise), they needed an aggressive policy reaction which took into account that the following year might be out as well. A $16 billion response would have given them all the first year's miss back, plus assumed a miss for the upcoming year.

Reaper.