The Prime Minister, and the Treasurer, have said time and time again since March, that ideology would not drive the government's response to the coronavirus induced economic crisis. And, time and time again, they have backed those assertions with action.

The policy settings for next week's budget, which were outlined by the Treasurer in a speech to business leaders, are entirely consistent with what the Morrison government has been doing since mid-March.

Such criticisms are not new. Back in June and July Mr Morrison and Mr Frydenberg were being roundly criticised on the assumption that, as fiscal dries who were hard wired to reject any form of long term Keynesian stimulus, they would deep-six the JobKeeper and the JobSeeker programs as soon as the six month lifetime that had been legislated for them expired.

Every time they refused to specify what would happen come August/September their political foes, and many commentators took that to mean nothing more would be done. The presumption was that the economy would be allowed to fall off a cliff, taking the homes, assets, and livelihoods of millions of Australians with it.

Little or no credence was given to the government's defence of its reticence on the grounds the situation was evolving so rapidly nobody had any idea what conditions would be like even one or two months ahead. Recent events in Victoria confirmed the wisdom of this view.

That said, time passed, Australia's lockdown laws actually worked better than anybody had dared to hope on a national level, and, in the fullness of time, the PM announced JobKeeper and JobSeeker would be extended, albeit at a reduced rate. That comes into effect this week.

The key point, and one which confirmed its commitment to putting people above politics, and the economy above ideology, was that the Coalition had signed off on the largest income support package in the history of the nation.

This is why opposition treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers did neither himself, nor the ALP, any favours on Thursday by trying to tie the Coalition to its previous commitment to fiscal sustainability and the delivery of surpluses.

It is universally accepted the whole world has changed and that the next few years - at least - are going to be very different to what anyone expected.

It may take decades before the economic damage caused by the pandemic finally plays out and the world returns to normal patterns of trade and growth.

The Morrison government, working through the medium of the national cabinet, has done a better job of managing the economic impact of the crisis than many other governments around the world.

There is no reason to think that they have any desire to derail those efforts. Or, as Mr Frydenberg put it himself on Thursday:

"It would be damaging to the economy and unrealistic to target surpluses ... this would risk undermining the economic recovery we need to bring hundreds of thousands more Australians back to work".

In other words, as the Treasury secretary, Steven Kennedy, said earlier this week, it is about "jobs, jobs, and jobs". "The money will continue to flow out in a smoother way than what the fiscal elements suggest".

Surpluses will be a long way from most sensible economists' minds on budget day.