As far as budget cock-ups go, this will be hard to beat. Ever. Yet, there is no denying that discovering that the budget is $60 billion better off is very, very good news.

Combined with the 1.6 million unemployed on the JobSeeker payment, there were supposedly up to 8 million people, or more than 60 per cent of the workforce, on some sort of support.
The government was bracing for a big blowout in the forecast unemployment rate of 10 per cent when the benefits expired at the end of September.
Suddenly, the whole situation is nowhere near as bad.
The massive correction came after the Australian Taxation Office and/or Treasury discovered paperwork errors in which about 1000 employers registered the dollar amount of wage subsidy they were seeking in the space they were meant to nominate the number of workers needing help.
For example, 500 businesses seeking support for one employee each registered 1500 employees.
It is a severe embarrassment for the government and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. One can only imagine the hiding had a Labor Treasurer presided over such a bungle.
But if there’s such as thing as a good blowout, this is it because it is unabashedly good news for the economy and confidence.
The gloomy economic forecasts will be pared back.
Labor has always argued for the scheme to be extended to foreign visa workers and casuals who had not had the same employer for 12 months, even when the scheme was supposedly blowing out.
Now there is scope to extend it, at least to the latter group, should the government see fit. This remains unlikely as it is a demand-driven scheme and that means you don’t spend all the money just because it’s there.
Labor, nonetheless, is claiming vindication that there was always scope to look after more workers. Its demand has grown legs.
For the government, the bungle provides valuable breathing space.
With both JobKeeper and JobSeeker (the doubling of the dole) due to expire at the end of September, there was much trepidation about the approaching cliff.
Not every business will have bounced back by then and many employees on JobKeeper will be let go and pushed onto JobSeeker which, the government insists, will be cut back to its old rate of $40 a day.
The government was always going to taper JobKeeper beyond September for workers in industries like international tourism which won’t recover soon, but it was worried about cost. Now it can taper easily.
The big question remains over what it will do with JobSeeker.