He will almost certainly have to do it all again in the real Budget in May, as the numbers in yesterday’s mid year update are arguably even dodgier than the numbers in the formal Budget last May.

And those ones only lasted five months before imploding.

The prospect of a "pre election Budget" that repeated yesterday’s attack on middle Australia, or had to admit that it was going to stay in deficit, would be better timed as an after election Budget.

Until now, Swan has framed his Budgets around "attacking the rich".

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Rich is variously defined as anyone earning more than $80,000 to miss out on tax cuts. Or earning more than $150,000 to lose the baby bonus.

Or $168,000 for a couple or family, to start losing the private health insurance rebate.

Now he has started to hit those on incomes below those sorts of cut offs, By definition,the "non rich".

The baby bonus gets slashed for second and later children. The private health insurance rebate will start to reduce.

Although small, the Government has crossed the line to attacking middle income people; and there would be more to come, but presumably after the next election.