It is the budget that nearly wasn't yet now the March 2025 blueprint has been asked to meet a triple challenge: revive a pallid economy, outflank a surging opposition, and rescue a government lagging in the polls.
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Despite delivering his fourth federal budget already this term, Treasurer Jim Chalmers still trails his mentor, Wayne Swan who churned out 10. Neither man, however, avoided extraordinary global economic tumult making their respective tasks abnormally difficult.
The former treasurer was hit peremptorily by the GFC which meant ditching austerity and shovelling billions out the door. Deficits extended beyond the horizon.
Chalmers, who was in close attendance as chief of staff, saw it all from the inside.
Now, after kneading an inflation-addled economy out of another stimulus-driven hangover - this time for COVID - he faces his own calamity from a Trump presidency that seems hell-bent on sending shockwaves through national economies.
Chalmers says the best defence against mayhem like that is a stronger economy with a vibrant private sector restored to its traditional role as the main driver of the economy.
Budgets are always political. Previous governments have tried to use them as springboards to an election.
The fact that this particular budget was not intended to happen at all tells you everything you need to know about the complex circumstances in which it falls.
Thanks to Cyclone Alfred, which forced Labor to honour its original March 25 timetable, this one is more pivotal than most. It lobs right on the cusp of a May election with Anthony Albanese due to visit the Governor-General within days.
Who, given the choice, would fix fiscal and economic parameters in this historical moment?
As if to illustrate the point, the two core messages Chalmers wants voters to imbibe feel like they point in different directions mixing together as well as oil and water.
On the one hand he optimistically declares "our economy is turning the corner ... the worst is behind us and ... is now heading in the right direction".
Unemployment will peak below 4.25 per cent - which is extremely low, real wages growth "will be stronger" and "inflation is coming down faster as well".
"All of this means the soft landing we have been planning and preparing for is looking more and more likely".
Into this he feeds "modest" tax cuts and genuine innovations like an end to "non-compete clauses" in employment contracts preventing workers moving to higher paid jobs. This is a competition-enhancing reform that will increase labour market mobility and lead to better pay and improved dynamism and productivity. "The wheels of reform are turning" he says.
A skilled and confident communicator, the Treasurer argues persuasively for his blueprint, observing that other economies have suffered greater hardships from the post-pandemic inflationary spike.
He says he'd rather engineer a soft landing than have to clean up after a hard landing. Few would disagree with that sentiment.
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But then comes the other message: "the global economy is volatile and unpredictable. The 2020s have already seen a global pandemic, global inflation and the threat of a global trade war".
It is no exaggeration to say that if he can land the first line of argument with a decent portion of undecided voters around the country, Labor will be on its way to a second term in office.
Chalmers calls the budget "a platform for prosperity" and proof of an Australian exceptionalism based on deep reserves of resilience. It's a welcome message of hope in a bleak world.
But if all voters hear is the bad part, and that this is as good as it gets, then the government may struggle.
However, this optimism-pessimism dichotomy presents something of a trap for Peter Dutton also. The abrasive Liberal does grimness and pessimism pretty naturally but can he rise to the sunlit uplands Chalmers predicts? With interest rates falling now that inflation has been safely tamed, whoever wins that argument, wins the election.
