Much of the detail of Tuesday's budget has been selectively released over past weeks, so informed voters would be aware the Territory's fiscal picture and outlook is relatively rosy. The plan to return the budget to balance in 2017-18, outlined by Mr Barr at this time last year, looks to be well on track. Unemployment continues to be well below the national average, retail spending is strong and construction cranes continue to dot the horizon. Total service exports in the 2015 calendar year rose by 16.2 per cent on the previous year to $1.6 billion, with education, tourism, and research and development particularly strong contributors. Such activity inevitably helps swell government coffers and, with the continuing buoyancy of Canberra's residential land and property, it would not surprise if the revenue figures Mr Barr announces on Tuesday are ahead of previous estimates.

Voters could hardly have failed to notice the Barr government has flagged changes to the rollout of its 20-year taxation reform plan, first implemented in 2012. The next chapter of the plan, to be presented as part of Tuesday's budget package, will outline a significant slowing in the rate of increase of residential and commercial property taxes – along with the message that the heavy lifting to place public revenue streams on a more sustainable footing is over.

The talk this year of the government reining in the discounts provided to seniors, pensioners, veterans and others (which cost the public purse $51.3 million last financial year) looks like it will remain just that, with Mr Barr apparently content to leave all but high-income households alone, and to redirect potential savings to welfare-dependent households.

The sweeteners and spending initiatives without which no pre-election budget would be complete have already been nailed to the mast. The more notable of these include payroll tax relief for small businesses whose annual wages bill is between $1.85 million and $2 million, a two-year trial of a kerbside garden waste service in Kambah and Weston Creek, a new anti-family violence package, and a significant increase in staff numbers at Canberra Hospital's emergency department.

Duplications of major arterial roads have also been prominent in pre-budget announcements and Mr Barr may add to the list on Tuesday, particularly given the Canberra Liberals' expansive pre-election commitments in this area.

The budget's aim is clearly to reinforce perceptions that Mr Barr's is an administration of reformers not punishers, with a strong record of economic competency to maintain that ethos. With positive budget reception more likely than not, Mr Barr may feel events are unfolding nicely – the more since the issue of light rail costs has been shunted off to a quiet siding

There remains the inescapable fact, however, that this is a government long of tooth and complacent of manner. Mr Barr may legitimately claim to be a relative newcomer to the office of chief minister, having succeeded Katy Gallagher in 2014, but he's been part of the Labor government in one fashion or other since 2002 when it was a year-old stripling. Mr Barr's energy and purpose may not be in question, but many voters have concluded the inflexibility of thinking and disdain of criticism the Chief Minister Barr affects from time to time betrays a familiarity with power not wholly admirable nor indeed desirable.

When a man knows he is to face the electorate in four months, to loosely paraphrase Samuel Johnson, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. Mr Barr's fifth budget certainly suggests a single-minded determination to secure re-election. To be truly competitive, however, Mr Barr has to convince an increasingly sceptical electorate that he remains attuned to the concerns of all and sundry, and not just the select few with entree to the executive wing of the Legislative Assembly. He does not have much time.