Fresh from the lock-up, political and economic commentators are delivering their verdict. Here’s your first look at how they’re calling it …

Ross Gittins (The Sydney Morning Herald):

“This is the weirdest budget you or I are ever likely to see. That doesn’t make it bad – just very strange. With just four months until the election, it’s the most unlikely pre-election budget you could imagine, with loads of nasties and next to no sweeteners. It is  more like a post-election budget, particularly the kind you get after a change of government. But its strangeness doesn’t end there. The Parliament has so few weeks left to sit, it is likely most of its controversial measures won’t become law before the election (with the increase in the Medicare levy the main exception). That makes it less a budget than an election policy speech. Only if Julia Gillard is re-elected can we be sure the budget measures will become a reality.”

Alan Mitchell (The Australian Financial Review):

“The budget is the best brought down by this government, but it should be seen as just a belated beginning to a process of rebuilding the federal government’s fiscal strength. The budget projections are better than economists expected, thanks to the long-term savings now in place or proposed. But they are not good enough … The longer-term projected surpluses – which must become a feature of future budgets – are heroic by the standards of the Gillard government’s fiscal record, but they really are too small for the pressures and risks we know are attached to the fiscal outlook.”

Laura Tingle (The Australian Financial Review):

“The government had invested huge political capital in achieving a surplus after the plunge into the red in 2008 and 2009 as the global financial crisis both hit revenue collections and prompted the government to embark on a huge ‘cash splash’ to avoid recession. The recession was avoided but as the crisis passed, the task of getting back into the black proved elusive. By late 2012, things were coming to an unpleasant head.

“The terms of trade and commodity prices had been falling since mid-2011, yet the dollar was staying stubbornly high, corporate profits were being squeezed and with them any hope of a surge in company revenue to let the government meet its surplus forecasts … ‘If we got just one quarter of growth in nominal GDP, we still had a chance of getting there,’ one source observes.”

Dennis Shanahan (The Australian):

“Wayne Swan’s sixth budget is the most political of all his budgets. Much of the success of the budget will depend on the reaction of the Coalition and what Tony Abbott decides to adopt. Limited by a lack of money and a sense of dwindling time the Treasurer has set out a long-term plan that is designed to future-proof what Labor sees as its legacy policies of the last five years — disability care and education reforms. The reforms are backed by spending cuts and tax rises and another promise of surplus in four years’ time.”

Michael Gordon (The Age):

“Usually, election budgets are viewed in isolation and are replete with giveaways. This one is joined at the hip to the one that spent money it didn’t yet have, and failed to anticipate the second-biggest revenue writedown since the Great Depression. But it’s an election budget just the same. This is not a give-away budget, but its purpose is to force Tony Abbott to nominate what he will take away.

“It’s about the choices Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard have made — and the choices Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey will have to make … Will this budget transform the contest? Hardly. Does it give Gillard a foundation to wage a campaign? Yes, it does. Will it instil confidence into a caucus that is bracing itself for a crushing defeat? This is doubtful.”

Michelle Grattan (The Conversation):

“Treasurer Wayne Swan has delivered a budget with a A$19.4 billion deficit this financial year, falling only to $18 billion in 2013-14. The government would aim to bring the budget back to ‘balance’ — less than $1 billion in the black — in 2015-16, and have a modest $6.6 billion surplus in 2016-17. The government’s unconventional pre-election budget – which includes a rise in the Medicare levy and a fresh crack down on ‘middle class welfare’ — contains $43 billion of savings through the forward estimates and funding for the key schools and disability programs. It foreshadows a growing economy but a small rise in unemployment, to 5.75%, next financial year.”