The front cover of this year’s budget features a mother and daughter walking down what looks suspiciously like a yellow brick road.

Perhaps the finance minister, in some subconscious moment of sincerity, was acknowledging the best hope of slaying the deficit is to follow the path to Emerald City and seek out the Wizard of Oz.

That seems a more realistic prospect than the measures taken in budget ’16 sparking the growth necessary to bring the economy back into surplus.

The Liberals have long been accused of being guilty of taxing, then spending. That appellation will have to be revised – they look set to become the party of spending, then taxing.

To this point, the Liberals have traded on the intangibles of their telegenic leader and the power of positive thinking.

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