AFTER a ferocious period of job cutting and service withdrawal, the Queensland LNP government has conceded it will break its promise to return the state budget to surplus in 2014-15. Sound familiar? Yes, it's true: the Gillard government was unable to keep its commitment to return the federal budget to surplus in 2012-13. To do so in the face of falling commodity prices and a high exchange rate would have flattened the national economy, needlessly putting Australians out of work and small businesses into receivership.