After surplus celebrations, Labor own this economy now

Say a phrase like that often enough and people believe it whether it is true or not. Like all sides claiming to be "better economic managers".

But here it is all laid out by the Albanese government. Even for just a few short months, Australia is in the unfamiliar territory of being back in the black.

Just shy of a full year in office, with two budgets - well one and a souped up mid-year update - under their collective belts, Labor is drawing a heavy line under the Coalition years with a $4 billion surplus. Ka-ching!

The economy has certainly helped, while zombie measures were paid off and savings measures were clawed back and mostly banked. There has been strong employment, wages and growth, migrants are back and commodity prices are up.

Could anyone have done this? Possibly, but the Coalition just didn't. In the final year, that last budget, they threw caution to the wind and went for a short-term, populist $8.6 billion support package, including one-off $250 cost-of-living payments. It did not work.

Labor's 2022-23 surplus, no matter how modest, will enter political folklore. Large neon signs will have index fingers pointing back to this moment.

It will be hard to get better than this. Not least because of what is coming.

The budget remains in structural deficit despite the temporary windfalls. Revenue is now keeping up when money is needed for aged care, the NDIS, defence, a buckling health system and paying down the debt. The grown up problem of reeling back a credit card maxed out by a trillion dollars remains.

The economy is slowing down but the government still has an inflation problem. It is tricky and not everyone, and pretty much everyone called on Labor to raise welfare rates, can be pleased.

That inflation is hurting the most vulnerable. People are really struggling. Three million are below the poverty line. Housing is out of reach for far too many. Suicide Prevention Australia wants the budget to have "cost-of-life" at its centre not just cost-of-living.

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Welfare is so unhelpful it has become a barrier to work. We heard that from the government's own hand-picked Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee.

So JobSeeker and other payments such as Youth Allowance are to be lifted by $40 a fortnight. People over 55 on JobSeeker will line up with those over 60 and get a $90 a fortnight boost.

There's a 15 per cent lift for Commonwealth rent assistance, help to increase bulk billing, energy bill relief.

Katy Gallagher insists it all can't be seen in isolation and there will be crossover in support for many struggling people, but it is unlikely to be enough to satisfy everyone. And the Stage 3 income tax cuts remain when advocacy groups can find so many other things to do the $20 billion a year it will cost from 2024.

This is Labor's balancing act. The ALP own this economic show now. And going forward will its low risk approach to budget repair be enough?

Putting aside the ongoing Coalition unpopularity, and whatever the opinion polls say, Labor's quite lengthy honeymoon is over.