 First, Australia faces the growing prospect of another federal election before the end of the year. In the ultimate test of his controversial budget, Treasurer John Dawkins has threatened another national poll if his new tax bills aren't passed in the Senate. Back in 1993, John Dawkins' budget broke election promises, contained unpopular hits on ordinary people and ran into problems in the Senate. The voters didn't forget, and the Keating government never recovered. Sound familiar? All was repeated in 2014. At the end of a tough week with an even tougher one ahead, time out for the Treasurer and his right-hand man, Finance Minister Corman. The 2014 budget was the beginning of the end for Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey. Not only was it chocked full of nasties, it was preceded by hubris. Most people get budget leaks, they get a story, they get the 80s, you got a tsunami, you actually got the entire budget papers. Was the budget speak? The speech, yeah. And they say the whole budget was in the speech. Yes, that's right. Often governments get some budget measures out beforehand, with strategic drops to the media. Years after the leak of the budget speech to journalist Laurie Oakes, John Howard, Treasurer of the Day, said it had been a huge embarrassment for the government. We have achieved our goal. Our budget is now in surplus. We are back in the black, we are back on track. We are paying off Labor's debt, and soon we can begin saving. We have now eliminated the $96 billion of net debt that Labor left the Australian government when it left office. On the positive side, budgets can be turned into boasts for successful treasurers. Peter Costello was very proud of delivering 10 surpluses in his 12 budgets. Questions first, or a bit of an overview? Overview. Overview? Well, this is the one that brings home the bacon. This is the budget that pulls the whole game together from 1983 onwards. Paul Keating found the ultimate cut-through line to describe his 1988 budget. Budgets are moments of opportunity, but also of danger. To give a twist to one of Malcolm Turnbull's favourite phrases, it has never been a riskier time to deliver a federal budget.