Consider this budget Treasurer Jim Chalmers' refusal to sign a non-compete clause

This budget comprises many pages, most of which will no doubt blow away in the gales of the imminent election campaign, but one conclusion is visible from space and should absolutely be noted: this is Jim Chalmers's formal refusal to sign a non-compete clause.

Have you ever seen a treasurer, obliged on budget night to confirm that the national books have slid $42b into the red on his watch, looking quite so incredibly chipper?

Energised, articulate, armed with charts demonstrating that Australia has finally achieved the "soft landing" he's been promising all this time, Mr Chalmers addressed journalists in the budget lock-up with the controlled excitement of a guy who's about to give his kids a pony.

"One of the things that makes me really optimistic about our country is that we've found a way to make some pretty remarkable progress in the last few years," he enthused.

Utterly unshamed by the opposition's complaints of his excessive spending, Mr Chalmers bowled up today with some more: new tax cuts amounting to $17 billion.

Scrapping non-compete clauses

The other main reveal — from a budget whose major elements were telegraphed in advance, especially the, ah, screaming deficit issue — was that the government plans to ban non-compete clauses for most workers.

Was that a manic twinkle in his eye, as Mr Chalmers explained that banning the growing scourge of non-compete clauses enforced on ordinary workers would further advance our nation's "exceptionalism" by unlocking vast reserves of productivity and contributing up to $5 billion to Australia's GDP?

"People shouldn't need to hire a lawyer to take the next step in their career," he later told the Parliament.

For Mr Chalmers — a man widely reputed to be interested in taking the next step in his career, possibly to a degree that might antagonise his boss — today was quite a remarkable performance.

The budget is replete with attractive spending, including in the Coalition's favourite realm — tax cuts. This gives Opposition Leader Peter Dutton two sleeps to decide: do his strong views on fiscal restraint extend to denying lovely tax cuts to battlers?

Or, to put it another way — will he compete?

And there are no scorching cuts or revenue measures in this budget creating losers with whom the opposition can profitably empathise.

Tax cheats? Illicit tobacco overlords? People who don't want to pay less for beer? Economists scandalised by the lack of structural reform? Even for a populist opposition leader of considerable talent, this budget is a tough room to scan for allies.

Unless, of course, you include the prime minister, one of the nation's hardworking bosses who now faces the threat of their subordinates cutting their professional lunch.

The budget may be going to hell in a red hand basket, but you kind of have to pay the tactic.

Some delicately worded sections

As is routine for a pre-election budget — and especially unsurprising in one that wasn't even going to be delivered until a certain tropical cyclone came slouching towards the coast of Queensland just weeks ago — the document itself contains a certain amount of careful obfuscation and language management.

It's not long since we had MYEFO, the mid-year economic statement. But according to Budget Paper 1, a few things have shifted in those scant months.

In what seems like unusually defensive language, Budget Paper 1 tautly advises that since MYEFO, the government has been obliged to commit an additional $3.5 billion to what is described in bold type as "addressing unavoidable issues".

The headline places some strain on the dictionary definition of "unavoidable", especially when you consider that — to choose an example — $156 million of it is to address the scorching national outbreak of illicit tobacco sales that surely has something to do with past budget decisions to jack up the tobacco excise?

Another unavoidable issue was the increased wage bill for aged care workers occasioned by the Fair Work Commission giving them a pay rise. Under encouragement from the government, though, so does that make it truly unavoidable?

Other unavoidable expenditures came from new listings on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which when you think about it were approved by … oh, you get the idea.

Something called the "Australian Screen and Digital Game Production Incentive" is projected to blow out by half a billion dollars over the next four years.

Turns out this includes the "location offset", an eye-poppingly expensive scheme whereby we subsidise Marvel productions to come to Australia, so don't go out and start a digital game design business on the strength of this section of budget viscera.

Such intricate reversals and rearrangements are usual in a budget, especially a pre-election one.

The main things you need to know? We're in a sea of red. But there's money everywhere. Some of it — like the electricity rebate — will come your way no matter what you earn.

Mr Chalmers has a royal flush of deficits, an advancing trade war, and a parliamentary margin so slender that this might well be his last budget.

But he's here to compete. Against all comers.