Tony Abbott doesn't own budget deficit 'It is absurd to try to stick Tony Abbott with Labor's budget deficit,' writes Terry McCrann. IT IS simply and totally absurd to try to 'stick' Tony Abbott with Kevin Rudd's - and Julia Gillard's and Wayne Swan's - budget deficit. It is this Labor trio which has combined to effectively promise: there will be no budget surpluses under any government I/we lead. The last budget surplus delivered by a Labor government was back in 1989-90. Since then, we've had 12 Labor budgets and 12 deficits, adding up to just shy of $300 billion. And counting. There were no surpluses in the budgets of Rudd Mark One. Three budgets, three deficits, adding up to $129 billion. There were no surpluses in the budgets of Gillard. Three budgets, three deficits, adding up to (at least) $93 billion. The last Gillard year is still playing out. And there will be no surpluses in the budgets of Rudd Mark Two, were he to be re-elected. The first 'surplus' is only projected to arrive in 2016-17. That's after the next election, whenever it's held late in 2016. But, in truth, there is no way in the world that we will get a surplus in that year - whoever is in government after Saturday week. The surplus projected for the 2016-17 year is the tiny, utterly meaningless figure of just $4 billion in what by then will be an (at least) $450 billion budget. Just how meaningless can be seen by what happened to the 2012-13 budget numbers. Last October, the government and Treasury were still predicting a $1 billion surplus. Just seven months later, they owned up to a $19 billion deficit. The 'surplus' claimed for 2016-17 is even more tenuous. The deceit, by both the Rudd Government and Treasury, so much more disgraceful. For it all 'assumes' two things. That the Government won't initiate a single new spending proposal over the next three years. And that the economy whirs back to near-normal growth, pumping up tax revenues. We are headed for more big deficits. They are wholly 'owned' by Rudd and Gillard and Swan.