While the federal government's decision not to proceed with its bid to increase the Medicare levy will be welcomed by millions of taxpayers who would have been slugged up to $600 each a year in extra payments, it raises more questions than it answers.
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The most significant is whether or not the proposed hike was justified in the first place.
Treasurer Scott Morrison originally told voters the cash was absolutely necessary if the cost imposed on the budget by the National Disability Insurance Scheme was to be met.
Labor, which has successfully stymied every attempt by the government to get the increase in the levy from 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent through the Senate, cried foul. It has always said the NDIS was fully funded under the Gillard-Rudd government.
The stoush got serious last year when Mr Morrison said the NDIS shortfall was $8.2 billion over four years and that the levy increase was the only way to go.
His critics in the ALP and on the crossbenches were quick to suggest another option; dropping the billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts the Coalition seemed hellbent on ramming through.
"Why," people were asking, "do we have to come up with extra cash to bail out the NDIS at the same time the government is giving big business a massive free kick?"
Considering the proposed reduction in the corporate tax rate from 30 per cent to 25 per cent by 2026-2027 would have cost the budget $65 billion, this was a good question.
The explosive revelations that have been coming out of the banking royal commission in recent weeks haven't helped. Most Australians would prefer to kiss a snake than sit down to lunch with a senior banking executive and promises of an economic recovery built on the "trickle down effect" just aren't cutting through.
While Mr Morrison has been quick to claim the levy hike is no longer needed because of the burgeoning economic outlook, there are other, albeit more cynical, explanations.
One is that failing some kind of miracle or disaster, depending on your point of view, at the ballot box, the corporate tax cuts are now as dead as the dinosaurs and the dodo.
If they aren't going to proceed then, on paper at least, the Treasurer has a lot more money to play around with.
He could either blow it on the political equivalents of wine, women and song through some judiciously targeted pork barreling campaigns (cue Barnaby Joyce) or, as appears to be the case, remove an additional impost on Australian families already battling rising power costs, rising petrol costs, rising housing costs and rising private health insurance costs against the backdrop of what is effectively a wage freeze.
It's actually pretty clever politics for a government that has demonstrated a remarkable talent for shooting at its own feet over the past few years.
Mr Morrison has managed to take two battles he was never going to win in the Senate and turn them into a political asset by saying sound financial management had made all the difference.
Well played, Mr Treasurer. What do you have in mind for an encore?
