Teachers, tradies, the mentally ill and POWs are among the winners, while public servants and company car owners are among the losers.
High performing teachers are to receive $425 million in bonuses from 2014 in a move which critics say could cause division among the profession but which will no doubt appeal to the top 10 per cent who stand to gain.
Tradies and other small businesses will be able to write off the first $5,000 of the cost of a work vehicle.
A tradie on a 30 per cent marginal tax rate, for example, will save $1,275 on buying a $33,960 ute.
The mentally ill will benefit from $1.5 billion in new spending, and students with disabilities gain from a new $200 million program.
Prisoners of war will at last get a $500 a fortnight benefits boost, the culmination of years of campaigning by ex POWs such as former Labor minister Tom Uren.
Low paid workers will see $300 a year of the Low Income Tax Offset start to go into their pay packets from July.
The bush gets $4.3 billion of investments in regional hospitals, health care, universities and roads.
On the other side of the ledger, the government will save almost a billion dollars by cutting the fringe benefits tax concessions for salary-sacrificed cars.
The mover will end the mad annual dash by drivers to rack up enough kilometres to contain a lower FBT rate, as half a million cars go on to a single 20 per cent rate.
Increased efficiencies in the public service are scheduled to save $1.1 billion, and the defence department will save the same by axing civilian staff by 1,000 and handing back money not spent on new equipment.
The sick face tougher criteria to get onto the disability support pension, and family tax benefit will be cut off when children turn 21 instead of 24, saving $29 million over four years.
One key measure affecting the entire nation, the carbon tax, has not been included in the budget.
There will be winners and losers in that, too, but the budget bottom line will not be among them.
The government says all of the revenue will be handed back in one form or another, such as offsets to households for higher electricity prices, making it budget neutral.
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