Mums and dads would be glued to the television as Treasurer Peter Costello announced just what tax cuts they would be entitled to over the next 12 months.
Both Labor and the Greens have applauded the government's move to tax the big banks 6.2 billion AU dollars over the next four years, but CEO of the Australian Bankers' Association Anna Bligh said the levy would trickle down to affect everyday Australians.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his frontbench react to Treasurer Scott Morrison and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during question time.
The government gave up on making cuts in health and education spending that the Senate has been rejecting as unfair to the poor since the ruling coalition's first budget in 2014.
Mr Morrison said the government was being "upfront" about the 10 year cost, arguing the tax cut is needed to ensure the Australian economy remains competitive.
The measures will raise nearly $21 billion of new tax revenue over the next four years, and help give the Turnbull government a modest surplus by 2021.
The 2017 Federal Budget was handed down on Tuesday, and as always, there have been plenty of questions ask of the PM and his Treasurer Scott Morrison.
Put the two together and the total cost 10 years from now is $65.4. billion.
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Until now, employers have contributed one to two per cent of their payroll to training if they employ foreign workers and these requirements have been hard to police, Morrison said. "It began on July 1, 2016 and the cost over 10 years is as I described, $50 billion of which a little less than half, $24 billion, is the cost of the legislated saves, that is legislated reductions [for] companies with a turnover of less than $50 million".
"They [the tax cuts] are fully funded".
Companies hiring workers from overseas on the new temporary skills shortage visa and certain permanent skilled visas will be slugged with a levy that will go into the government's new 'Skilling Australians Fund'.
'It is a tax that will hit Australians by hurting investment and could have unintended consequences, ' she said.
The government forecasts that it will claw back in the region of AUS$540m (£308m) from the measure.
Mr Morrison signalled that it was his intention to use adjustments in tax thresholds to curb the negative effects of bracket creep, pointing to last year's budget decision to grant relief to 500,000 lower and middle-income taxpayers.
That speech will see the Opposition Leader step up his class-warfare attack on the government, arguing the Turnbull government's second budget will offer more help for millionaires - by allowing the temporary deficit fix levy on people who earn more than $180,000 to expire - than for middle-class families.
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