A first budget provides a new treasurer with the opportunity to do something pretty substantial.
It also sets the tone for a government with one eye on the next election.
And then there's the blame game, handy cover for hard decisions.
Peter Costello inherited a deficit of $10.3 billion in 1996 when the outgoing Keating government insisted it left the budget in balance.
This time around, Labor made no such promises but the extent of the budget position is remarkably similar.
As a proportion to the size of the economy, or gross domestic product, the budget deficit back then was 2.1 per cent.
That's the exact equivalent of the $33.9 billion Joe Hockey predicted as a deficit for 2014/15 when he released the mid-year budget review in December.
Costello in his first budget, which he handed down in August rather than the traditional May date, took the budget by the scruff of the neck.
He cut spending by about $8 billion over the first two years to create a small deficit in 1997/98.
In fact, he went further and achieved a small surplus of $149 million in the second year.
That proved to be the first of a long run of surpluses - bar 2001/02 - until the coalition lost power in November 2007.
Costello also introduced the Charter of Budget Honesty, saying Labor's financial dishonesty was of such magnitude that it undermined public confidence in the political system.
"We will ensure it never occurs again," he told parliament in his budget speech.
The charter gets a good airing every three years at election time.
Whether it has boosted confidence in the political system is questionable, but it does mean costings are debated over and over and over again during election campaigns.
Wayne Swan found himself in entirely different circumstances when preparing his first budget in 2008.
He was able to forecast a surplus of $21.7 billion after reporting $16.8 billion surplus from Costello's last budget.
Labor repackaged personal income tax cuts, first promised by the Howard government, into a $55 billion Working Families Support Package and claimed the credit.
At the time economists questioned its generosity, but Swan insisted his budget was "carefully designed" at a time of international turbulence.
By the end of 2008, that turbulence turned into the global financial crisis.
The promised surplus in 2008/09 became a $27 billion deficit or 2.1 per cent of GDP.
The following year, Labor posted the largest deficit on record - $54 billion or 4.2 per cent of GDP - as it spent like a drunken sailor, to use Hockey's words.
The government's motive was to prevent the economy joining the rest of the world in recession.
The budget has been in deficit since, despite repeated Swan assurances it would return to surplus in 2012/13.
"No government gets to choose the global economic circumstances in which the budget is framed," Swan said in what proved to be his last budget speech in May 2013.
But they do get to choose the priorities for the nation.
The question is, will Hockey be able to keep to his set path?
One thing is for sure: he won't be going down the Swan path by predicting a specific date for a return to surplus.
But his first budget is likely to plot a path back to the black.
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