Joe Hockey said this before his first budget.

Even the Treasurer's own children might go without lifesaving medicine if he did not take an axe to spending, tackle Labor's "debt and deficit disaster" and end the "age of entitlement".

Compare Hockey's 2014 rhetoric to his modest assessment on Thursday of the impending budget: "It's an optimistic document. It's a realistic document but it's focused on growing the economy."

Invited by a Sydney talkback radio host on Thursday to wade back into the story of debt and deficit disaster, Hockey thanked him and brought the interview to a quick close.

The Abbott government learned quickly – and painfully – after Hockey's first budget speech that the electorate was not buying the budgetary Armageddon warnings the Coalition brought to office.

Amid sharply rising house prices, sustained low interest rates, a softening but still solid jobs market, decades without a recession and a once-in-a-generation mining boom, albeit one that was tailing off from the investment phase, Australians didn't swallow the language of catastrophe.

They also didn't agree that low-to-middle income earners, the unemployed and retirees should do the heavy lifting to restore balance to the budget.

So the language of impending doom was boxed up months ago and in its place has been a message from Hockey and Prime Minister Tony Abbott that budget 2.0 will focus on the electorally palatable areas of jobs, families and small business.

But, unlike last year, this budget has twin audiences.

Just as important as the public reception is the assessment of Coalition backbenchers and, more specifically, those 39 MPs who cast a vote for thin air in the party room in January rather than back their leader.

In the days after the Prime Minister's "near-death experience" one of the malcontents explained to Fairfax Media that there were certain "tripwires" that could spark a fresh round of instability. Hockey's second budget loomed the largest. It had to be a "ball-tearer", a spill backer noted.

Fairfax Media canvassed backbenchers on Thursday and Friday, including MPs who in January had wanted to topple their leader, and found some nervousness but also a level of optimism about Tuesday's budget and even some admiration for the way Abbott has "got up off the canvas" and boxed himself back into the fight against a recently ineffectual Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten.

The budget is viewed internally as the opportunity for Abbott and Hockey to fundamentally revive the government's fortunes or risk sinking again.

One Liberal said it had been a "tidier" process this year and the strategic release of elements of the budget, like Social Services Minister Scott Morrison's pensions rejig, had framed the debate around fairness as the Labor Party had sought to fight on the perceived unfairness of the tax system, particularly the lack of tax paid by multinationals and corporate Australia.

"But let's not get carried away. A good budget can be forgotten quite quickly while a bad budget hangs around for a long time, as we found last year. They are asymmetrical like that," the backbencher said.

The same person pointed out that Morrison's performance, which was lauded in the media this week, stood out for no other reason than that he has done what a competent minister should do and prosecuted his case with energy and without hiccup.

Another Liberal MP who voted against Abbott in the party room expressed renewed hope. "We have got what we wanted: a right-wing Prime Minister who is basically acting as a moderate. You couldn't ask for more of a departure from last year's disaster," the MP said.

The backbencher's view is that a debt and deficit problem existed last year but the electorate was not ready to accept the message. Ironically, the MP says, there are signs the electorate is coming around just as Hockey embarks on his softly, softly second go.

"It wasn't working last year. It was too early. Hockey and Abbott were talking about disaster when iron ore prices were $130 a ton. It was simply too soon. It's only now that people are starting to appreciate there is a problem. It used to be that people were leaving to go work in mines and someone else would step up and take their job. Now people are coming back from mines and looking for work."

Reports emerged on Thursday that Liberal Party Whip Scott Buchholz had confronted Abbott on behalf of the backbench and warned that if the budget was a failure Hockey should be sacked.

Abbott denied the story and guaranteed Hockey's future but a backbencher told Fairfax Media that Hockey was put on notice just as much as Abbott in the ructions this year.

"Joe and Tony were both targets in January. But Joe never got it."

Queensland Liberal Ewen Jones put things in perspective, tweeting that: "we're all out of a job" if the budget flops again.

Liberal lobbyist and former Howard chief of staff Grahame Morris acknowledged that it's do or die for Hockey and the government. "This budget is important for the Prime Minister, it's important for the Treasurer, it's important for the backbench and it's important for the government," he said.

"The real difference with this year's budget is that there is some good news in it."

Queensland Liberal Warren Entsch, who went public with his dissatisfaction with the leadership team in January, said his electorate anticipated a better budget.

"People around here are beginning to understand the budget challenges we face but they also appreciate the fairer changes to pensions that have been announced," he said.

"I'm comfortable with where it is headed but as always the devil is in the detail. I won't be afraid to speak my mind."

Another MP said simply: "It won't be a f----up, it just won't."

Changes to the Abbott ministry and cabinet appear to have delivered dividends and the reduced intervention of the Prime Minister's chief of staff Peta Credlin, at least publicly, has calmed disquiet.

There is still resentment that last time around Credlin "divided and conquered" and ministers were sent out to sell dud products like the GP co-payment and pension indexation.

Morrison and Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's addition to the expenditure review committee has strengthened the razor gang.

Morrison is expected to announce a childcare package on Sunday to continue the theme of fairness for families in the run-up to Tuesday.

Funds for jobs and workforce participation are anticipated in the budget.

The government will talk up a business tax cut for small business and a new "Netflix tax" on digital downloads. A flagged "Google tax" will not proceed but measures to tighten rules around multinational offshore profit-shifting will be closely watched.

The pension changes have been announced but generous superannuation tax concessions will be left alone as will negative gearing.

The education and health portfolios are not expected to receive significant hair cuts but the government will go after the cost of subsidised medicines, angering pharmaceutical companies.

Defence is not expected to be cut but it is also unlikely that any significant headway will be made towards the Coalition's promise to spend 2 per cent of GDP on the portfolio by 2023.

If there is a looming danger for Abbott and Hockey in making a success of the sales job for this budget it is that the government's step to the sensitive centre has opened up its right flank to harsh criticism from the business sector and conservative media, its main bulwark of support.

Their concern is that by doing a 180 to save their political hide, Abbott and Hockey have turned their backs on the deficit issue.

While Morrison's Age Pension changes were well received, in budget terms they were little more than some "dainty pruning", according to the editorial writers of The Australian, saving just $2.4 billion over four years while the ballooning pensions bill will total $190 billion over the same period. The scrapped pension indexation changes would have saved $23 billion over a decade.

On Friday, Innes Willox, chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, warned the government not to dodge its "central task" of getting the budget back on a sustainable footing and "fortifying the economy against the pressures bearing down on it".

Some on the right fear that the task of budget repair is now on the backburner until the Coalition wins another term and is able to have another crack at the task.

A report by Deloitte Access Economics last week warned the budget faces deficits totalling $150 billion across the next four years – $50 billion more than the official forecasts.

Despite the doomsday scenario, the bulk of economists agree that now is not the time to preference deficit repair over economic growth.

But financial market experts also keenly point out that the Treasurer is at the mercy of the economy. In the past week he has had to paint the lowest ever interest rates as an opportunity for all amid the worst daily plunge in the sharemarkets in years.

Take this assessment of the hapless Hockey by stockbroker Marcus Padley: "There are moments in the market where you think that's a sign of a top and the sign for me was Joe Hockey saying 'everybody should go out, borrow money, invest, and have a go' and the moment he said that, the market fell over. Same when he said the iron ore price is going to $37. The moment he said that, the iron ore price started going up. So he's proving to be the perfect counter indicator at the moment."

Hockey will be desperately hoping that this type of ridicule is left behind, along with his first budget, by Tuesday night.