The carrots in Joe Hockey's first budget are hard to find.
It certainly won't improve economic growth in the near term or - more importantly - boost employment.
The jobless rate has been holding at 5.8 per cent, after hitting a decade high of six per cent earlier this year.
But Hockey is sticking with the Labor forecast of 6.25 per cent in 2014/15 and the next financial year.
The unemployment rate won't have a five in front of it until 2017/18 - after the 2016 election.
Hockey's growth forecasts are also uninspiring and don't show the economy returning to its long term trend pace of 3.25 per cent until 2016/17.
The forecasts reinforce the likelihood that the Reserve Bank won't be raising interest rates any time soon, which is good news for home buyers.
However, consumer confidence slumped to its lowest level in five years - since the global financial crisis - as budget leak after budget leak did the rounds.
If consumer spending suffers as a result, the central bank could still eye off an interest rate cut, from its current all-time low of 2.5 per cent.
And all those rumours of a budget levy, the reintroduction of fuel indexation, pension age rise and cuts to family benefits, and more, are all true.
"But this budget is not about self interest. This budget is about the national interest," Mr Hockey said in his budget speech on Tuesday.
It's a tough call if you're one of those 16,500 public servants about to lose their job over the next three years.
Little wonder Canberra was the only capital city in which house prices went backward in the first three months of this year.
Of course, Hockey's budget forecasts could end up being overly conservative.
Come the 2016 federal election year, the economy may be travelling at a much better pace as Hockey delivers his third budget.
But it's a high risk strategy if it isn't.
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