The Government...will hope a high-profile promise kept will counter promises the budget will break in letter or spirit.
The paid parental leave scheme is the budget's small bright, shiny button. For many women and for the union movement, it is a symbol as well as a tangible outcome of lobbying.
Let's keep it in perspective. For women in low-paid jobs it will be a godsend, and it will also help keep people attached to the workforce, which is vital as the population ages.
But at $260 million a year, it is modest, and substantially cheaper than the original Productivity Commission $450 million proposal. It also won't start until 2011, which reinforces the point that for now it is a feel-good measure.
The Government was under intense pressure to keep faith with the expectations it had raised, although its original commitment was phrased quite generally. It will hope a high-profile promise kept will counter promises the budget will break in letter or spirit.
The health insurance rebate is one; for upper income earners it will be sliced or abolished. The Medicare safety net will take a haircut, cracking down on rorting specialists. Doctors will have to come to the party or patients will have to shop around if they aren't to be left out of pocket.
In some areas there will be dispute about what was the "promise" - whether to keep a scheme or to keep everyone eligible for it.
Treasurer Wayne Swan struggles under questioning over broken promises, saying circumstances meant "hard decisions" which "may mean there will be changes to previously announced policies".
The Government will get some immediate stick, but how that works out in the budget aftermath will depend on the extent of promise-breaking, whether the Government has resorted to much dodginess, and how the budget is received generally.
On a longer view, the budget may be the start of that perception the public has, sooner or later, about all governments... the feeling that their undertakings can't really be relied on. To think they can, totally, is an impossible dream. It's always a matter of degree.
The issue of trust is a difficult one for governments and voters, and sometimes its erosion can be a complicated process that happens over many years, as we saw with John Howard.
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