The afterglow of leading a successful G20 meeting will turn to the reality of the challenge Australia faces to fulfil its part of a global growth deal.
Treasurer Joe Hockey will next week get his own starting point for the economic growth target he help set for the rest of the world.
Hockey, chairing his first major international conference last weekend, took two key ideas to the agenda - a global growth target and a commitment to seek ways to free-up private money to invest in infrastructure - and got a nod of approval on both.
That in itself is no mean feat given that international gatherings - like the G20, G7 or G8 - frequently come away with little, despite all the hype.
Importantly, finance ministers and central bankers from the world's biggest economies committed to implement policies to grow global economic activity by an extra $US2 trillion ($A2.24 trillion) before the end of the decade.
This, Hockey says, will create tens of millions of jobs worldwide.
The aim is to lift collective economic growth by more than two per cent above the current trajectory over the next five years.
In January, the International Monetary Fund forecast global growth of 3.7 per cent for 2014 and just above four per cent by 2018.
It's a bold aim, and while the G20 won't be penalising any country that doesn't embrace the cause, members will only have themselves to blame if they don't play along.
"If we don't achieve it, there will be fewer jobs created and less economic growth and less prosperity - it's as simple as that," Hockey says.
Treasury's executive director of international macroeconomics Barry Sterland, who was heavily involved in the G20 gathering, says while countries did not have individual targets, neither was two per cent a maximum.
"Many countries around the table I think have ambitions for achieving ... changes in growth that are higher than that," he told a Senate estimates hearing this week.
Australia will prepare its own growth strategy and the treasurer has indicated that it will be consistent with the government's election commitments.
"If it was to be achieved, a lot of the benefits (to Australia) actually come from spillovers from other countries," Mr Sterland said.
In its recently released annual report on Australia, the IMF predicted a growth rate of 2.6 per cent in 2014 before gradually rising to three per cent in 2017 and 2018.
"If we don't get economic growth above three per cent, then we are going to continue to have rising unemployment," Hockey says.
As of last September, the economy was growing at a puny 2.3 per cent annually, nearly a full percentage point below what is considered to be trend growth.
"That's not good enough," Hockey says.
"We need to speed up the Australian economy and that is going to come from structural reform of the budget."
The latest growth numbers for the December quarter will be released in the national accounts next Wednesday.
There are still several sets of data due for release over the next few days that will feed into the final outcome.
Westpac senior economist Andrew Hanlan at this stage is expecting a higher annual growth rate of 2.7 per cent based on improved consumer spending and a contribution from exports.
But figures this week also showed unexpectedly weak construction and capital expenditure during the December quarter.
Treasury believes there are some positive signs emerging in the economy, especially from rising business confidence and conditions.
The department's executive director for its domestic macroeconomic group, David Gruen, says the clearest sign of recovery in the non-mining sector is in housing, particularly in the established home market.
However, he told the Senate hearing that recent data has otherwise been consistent with the economy travelling at a sub-trend pace both this financial year.
Dr Gruen said there is a live debate about how straightforward the transition away from the largest mining boom Australia has ever seen will be.
"There are certainly people in the public domain who think that we will struggle to maintain the economy with the sort of unemployment rates we have seen over the last decade," Dr Gruen told the hearing.
It highlights the enormity of Hockey's challenge.
