Mercifully, the budget emergency has miraculously disappeared and the Abbott mantra of “debt and deficit” has been replaced with a clarion call from Mr Hockey for all Australians, but particularly  small business, to simply “have a go.”

And to help small business kick-start economic growth and jobs growth Mr Hockey has mapped out a “credible” path to surplus which gets Australia back into the black a year later than planned last year.

With the sky no longer falling, voters can breathe again and focus on what is good in the second Hockey budget, and there is plenty to applaud.

For small business people right across Australia there is a share in a $5 billion stimulus package in the form of income tax cuts and tax concessions on capital expenditure.

For our orchardists the one sour note is the end of the $20,000 tax-free income threshold for foreign backpackers who have been critical to getting their crops in. Pickers will become even harder to find.

The government has unveiled  a childcare subsidy scheme which will benefit most families, albeit it won’t kick in until 2017.

Generally the budget passes the fairness test, particularly when compared with the grossly unfair budget Mr Hockey tried to force through the parliament last year.

So this is the budget of a government on a learning curve. In particular Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey have learned that their positions are not unassailable and trust lost in a single document can take a long time to win back.

They have bought themselves time by delivering a budget with reasonable goals and methods. 

How much time they now have will depend on factors like the strength of Chinese demand and whether the stimulus targeting small business and families with young children will deliver the economic growth needed to underpin budget targets.