There were no major surprises for Tasmania in federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's first, and potentially last, budget since taking on the role in the wake of the Liberal leadership spill last year.
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With Australians expected to have their say at the ballot box in May - an election which polling suggests is Labor's to lose - Mr Frydenberg has been under immense pressure to deliver an eye-catching budget to give the Coalition a tailwind heading into the campaign.
A looming return to surplus was the centrepiece of Mr Frydenberg's budget speech on Tuesday night.
For Tasmania, though, little was in the 2019-20 budget that we weren't already aware of.
Perhaps chief among the new budget measures to benefit Tasmania was the additional $68 million for tranche three of the Tasmanian Freight Rail Revitalisation Program, which will start flowing to the state in the 2021-22 financial year.
The program's purpose is to upgrade Tasmania's freight rail infrastructure, which TasRail believes could usher in a new era of rail investment in the state.
The federal government's $56 million in support for a proposed second undersea interconnector for Bass Strait, dubbed Marinus Link, to allow the state to import and export energy to the mainland, had already been announced.
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On Tuesday, The Advocate reported on the second linear accelerator, used to destroy cancer cells, for the North West Cancer Centre in Burnie, the funding for which is accounted for in the federal budget.
Meanwhile, the new funding for the Roads of Strategic Importance initiative will see $80 million put towards improving Birralee Main Road, the Murchison Highway, Old Surrey Road and Massey Greene Drive and Strahan Road.
Tasmanian Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck said the "strong" economic stewardship of the Morrison government would leave Tasmania in a better place.
"This budget is about easing cost of living pressures, guaranteeing essential services and building new congestion busting infrastructure to ensure families in Tasmania can get home easier and safer," Senator Colbeck said.
Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Michael Bailey said he believed the government may be keeping a few things up its sleeve.
"There is certainly a capacity for announcements," Mr Bailey said.
"I would be very surprised if there weren't some major announcements, certainly in Lyons
"I suspect they might be holding those and waiting for the election to be called to make sure they are clearly in the minds of voters as voting points.
"What we see here is a budget designed to keep most people happy.
"For Tasmania, on the surface of it, it looks like a good budget for our state."
University of Tasmania Institute for the Study of Social Change director Richard Eccleston said the budget indicated the government was going to run on its claim to be delivering a surplus this year.
"Bass, Braddon and Lyons are all marginal Labor seats but it is significant that there didn't seem to be any large, Tasmanian-specific initiatives designed to win one of those seats back to the coalition," Dr Eccleston said.
"Obviously the big-ticket item is the doubling of the Low Income Tax Offset which is good politics and also good policy, given the fact that the economy is slowing.
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"It's good for middle-income Tasmanians; it's quite carefully targeted and affordable.
"The big gap there is the people working part-time or on low incomes who won't benefit for that.
"There's very little there on government payments and that's a big part of the Tasmanian demographic. 35 per cent of Tasmanian households rely on government payments for their income."
Tasmanian Council of Social Service chief executive Kym Goodes said the budget brought no joy for Tasmanians on low-income wages or income support.
"A surplus of $46 billion while 120,000 Tasmanians live in poverty is not good enough," Ms Goodes said.
"There is only a $75 per year, one-off payment and if you are on Newstart you get no help with cost of living pressures.
Ms Goodes said the budget ignored the two biggest and broadest reaching social issues in Tasmania: housing affordability and National Disability Insurance Scheme under-funding.
"The NDIS under-spend of $3 billion per year is unconscionable," she said.
"Every cent of that is money that could be providing a better life for Tasmanians living with disability
"Good governments use effective policy to prevent and offset rising inequality, stagnant incomes and rising costs of living rather than simple tax cuts to create a short-term sense of improvement."
Tasmanian Greens Senator Nick McKim said the budget was missing action on climate change.
Senator McKim said the $2 billion commitment for the Climate Solutions Fund is over 15 years, with $189 million in this years' budget.
"$189 million over four years is pathetically inadequate," Senator McKim said.
"We are in a climate emergency and we need to drastically reduce our emissions right now.
"There is no extra money to manage the World Heritage Area, no extra money to help fight the fires in the World Heritage Areas - so a massive lost opportunity to respond to the ongoing and increasing risk of more fires in our wilderness."
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