No surprises but risks aplenty in Tom Koutsantonis's comeback budget

The 2026-27 budget featured significant spending on health and housing. (ABC News: Che Chorley)

If a week's a long time in politics, nine years is an eternity.

Yet some things haven't changed since Labor Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis last handed down a state budget in 2017.

Back then, the Weatherill government was negotiating a support package for the Whyalla steelworks after the collapse of Arrium, putting up more than $50 million for a new owner.

That budget also contained $528 million for a new Adelaide Women's Hospital to be co-located with the Royal Adelaide Hospital and "completed in 2024".

Tom Koutsantonis has delivered his first budget since 2017 after being reinstated as state treasurer. (ABC News: Malcolm Sutton)

Labor was swept out of power nine months later, the steelworks went back into administration in 2025, and a co-located Women's and Children's Hospital won't be finished until at least 2031.

Mr Koutsantonis, appointed treasurer after Labor's landslide March election win, handed down a budget on Thursday still confronting those challenges from nine years ago.

Another $159.5 million has been allocated to keep the steelworks afloat through its second administration, pushing the state and federal allocation to Whyalla towards $3 billion.

The Whyalla steelworks has been in administration since early 2025. (ABC News: Che Chorley)

The steelworks are also classified as a risk if something were to go wrong with finding a new owner, with the budget papers noting "unquantifiable potential exposures to the state in certain circumstances".

The Malinauskas government has become well-versed in the language of cost blowouts, and the $3.2 billion Women's and Children's Hospital is another chance for it to flex its vocabulary.

The design of the new Women's and Children's Hospital is still not finalised, and might not be before October, with signs of a major cost blowout not going away.

"We've allocated $3.2 billion and we're not ashamed to say this project is having difficulties," Mr Koutsantonis said.

"There's going to be budget discipline, and budget discipline means sticking to budgets as much as we possibly can."

The emphasis on discipline comes as Mr Koutsantonis also confronts a host of challenges that did not exist in 2017.

Back then, most of the geopolitical risks on Treasury's radar were around the Chinese economy and rising interest rates in the United States.

Now, the Iran War has made economic forecasting a whole lot more difficult.

"I don't know what shocks are coming next," the treasurer said, adding that the government was d