In what's been a busy week in Australian federal politics, ScoMo finally announced he would be leaving the parliamentary building, just as Albo undid one of his predecessor's signature policies (or land mines) by reworking the Stage 3 tax cuts, creating hysteria among Liberals and the mainstream media, and some relief for those Australians earning less than $200,000 a year.

It’s the $2,000 question. Will the Byron, Ballina and Tweed Shires share in the extra government disaster payments offered to our neighbours in Lismore, Richmond Valley, and Clarence Valley?

Getting too caught up in the details can mean that we are distracted, says political commentator Andrew Street – we need to step back to ask the bigger question of why we’re at this point at all.

When faced with potential conflict, why are we abandoning the strategy that’s worked in the past for one that will definitely fail?

Scott Morrison’s puerile sneer that most of his cabinet ministers wouldn’t even know who (NSW Environment Minister) Matt Kean was actually contains a grain of truth.

Scott Morrison is rummaging around in his near-empty presents sack looking for some spare socks and mouldy chocolates, the sleigh is off at the panel beaters in need of drastic repairs, and the reindeer continue to shit on us from a great height.

And so ScoMo’s annus miraculous staggers to an end, with the promise that the next one will be the year of delivery, the one that produces the outcomes which will make all the dithering, procrastination and avoidance of issues all worthwhile.

Faster than you could say George Orwell, it was revealed clean energy actually meant gas, and the head of the expert panel was to be none other than Grant King, the former CEO of Origin Energy (aka the people who fracked Queensland and created a fiery spa bath in the Condamine River).

The Liberal bullies and the Murdoch-Costello press have jammed their frame around indigenous recognition, and it boils down to 'we will decide what you can have, and it’s probably going to be bugger-all'.