By Michael Gordon
Bill Shorten's response to last year's budget of broken promises was a vow to be every bit as negative as the man who tore down two prime ministers and a government. And he was.
That approach was never going to fly with this year's far more voter-friendly effort, so Shorten has opted for a more nuanced mix of vision, idealism and ridicule.
While Joe Hockey's budget is focused squarely on the here and now - giving voters to incentive to borrow, spend and employ today - Shorten's horizon is the decade beginning in 2020 and the jobs of the future.
If the battle line last year was fairness, Shorten is seeking to make politics this year a contest about the future.
The promise is to prepare children (and teachers) for the digital age and encourage business start-ups and innovation, but much more detail is required beyond that revealed on Thursday evening - including how he intends paying for initiatives and tackling the task of budget repair.
The idealism stretches credulity: that both sides of politics will surrender power to make the big calls on nation-building to an independent Infrastructure Australia and work together to reduce the tax rate on small business from 30 to 25 per cent.
The ridicule is for a budget that Shorten insists includes the unfairness of last year's effort – "rebranded, reheated and repackaged for an opinion poll".
While supporting the Coalition's small business package, national security measures and drought relief, he brands the budget "a hoax, a mirage, a smokescreen" that repackages the unfairness of last year's effort.
The most savage attack is directed at the decisions to end "double-dipping" on paid parental leave and to pay for a vastly improved approach to child care with cuts to family support announced in last year's budget.
The promise is that Shorten will lead a government to nurture a "smart, modern and fair Australia". If the canvas is huge, so too is the amount of detail that needs to be filled in.