When it was announced last week that the mid-year budget papers would only be handed to journalists as Joe Hockey started his press conference on the matter, the accusations started to fly that the government was trying to avoid scrutiny.
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But when when the Treasurer appeared half an hour late for his mid-year economic update on Monday, no one was crying "no fair".
Hockey, usually so full of economic swagger, was full of sorrow.
"I apologise for the delay for obvious reasons," he said quietly, noting that he was "very familiar" with the Lindt Cafe that was currently under siege in the middle of the Sydney central business district.
In the Blue Room at Parliament House, Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann stood wearing blue ties, framed by two blue Australian flags.
The budget deficit would blow out to $40.4 billion this year, the newly released glossy documents revealed, and Australia was not "projected" to return to a surplus until 2019-20.
Commodity prices and wages growth were down, Hockey explained, but the government wanted people to know the nation's books were not out.
"Ladies and gentleman, the Commonwealth budget is stronger today than it was last year," he offered.
Cormann, his ministerial chum, chimed in hopefully with the observation that: "there's much more work to be done of course, but we're on track".
But one got the feeling that their hearts were not quite in it.
Hockey asked that more technical questions could be asked "offline" and later told the room that he did not "want to be political today".
However, he did perk up when asked how voters could believe there would a surplus in 2019-20 when they had been dudded so many times before on the pledge.
The Treasurer was quick to observe that he had never promised a surplus timeline before, unlike his economic nemesis, Wayne Swan.
"I have been at pains not to do that, having witnessed the ugly episode of my political opponents in trying to do that," Hockey said.
He showed a similar level of fight when asked what his message was to pre-Christmas shoppers in light of the Sydney siege.
"Look, we cannot allow these events to shut down our country, to shut down who we are as an Australian people," he said, staring down the barrel of the camera.
"No matter how horrific these events can be, we cannot allow ourselves to be intimated."
