Given current polling and the vaccination schmozzle, the odds are favouring the government hanging on to the benefits of incumbency as long as possible, hoping the vaccine bungles will fade, the shots work, peace breaks out over our internal borders, and the promises of opening up start to look more credible.

That would mean a repeat of the 2019 timetable – an April budget ahead of a May election.

Given the government’s denial, dissembling and deflection over blatant and systemic corruption last time, fasten your seat belts for even more rorting of the public purse for political purposes.

And with Labor caving in on the stage-three tax cuts and reforming negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, we could be facing the biggest vote-buying campaign since Kevin Rudd and John Howard were trying to outbid each other in the boom year of 2007.

The joint Labor-Liberal tax ticket means that in 2024-25, if someone with a taxable income of $180,000 sells a few shares in their portfolio for a $20,000 profit, they will pay only 15 per cent tax on that – $3000.

At the same time, someone on an average wage of $80,000 with no tax deductions will pay 30 per cent – $6000 – on the last $20,000 of their income after working for three months to earn it.

Someone on a median wage of $60,000 (and unlikely to have much in the way of negative gearing or extra superannuation deductions) will pay $5450 tax on their final $20,000 of income that took four months to earn.

(And as we’ve reported numerous times, the effective marginal tax rate for many people on median wages and lower is vastly higher, quite often much higher than that of people on seven figures and more.)

Alan Kohler: Allowing some families to be financially ruined is unforgivable

Last year’s lockdowns were only briefly painful for the economy because of the JobKeeper program, at a cost of $93 billion.

It was both great policy and a debacle: It saved the economy because of its speed and generosity, and saved hundreds of thousands of people and businesses from going under, but too much of the money was stolen from under the government’s noses.

Almost every day a new story reveals more details about how the scheme was mismanaged and rorted.

If any scandal ever deserved a royal commission, it’s this.