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Analysis: When is it OK to break a rolled gold promise?
Simple, really: when you reckon you can get away with it.
Or, as Anthony Albanese put it today, when you're "doing the right thing for the right reasons".
So if the prime minister, who not so long ago professed "my word is my bond", believes he can break that bond on stage 3 tax cuts, he also believes he can survive the inevitable opposition onslaught on his credibility and integrity.
Like nothing else before it, the government will hang on Albanese's political judgment and his powers of persuasion.
There can be no question that Albanese has broken faith with repeated assurances he would not tamper with stage 3.
He cannot deny it and would be unwise to even attempt to do so.
Instead, he will have to turn his about-face into a virtue; that it wasn't so much a fib but a forgivable flip.
In recent weeks, Labor's position on stage 3 has been naggingly and suspiciously tepid.
"Our position has not changed," has been the go-to five-word formulation for Albanese and cabinet ministers on whether Labor would fiddle with the plan.
Of course, positions don't change until they actually do.
So what does Albanese say in defence of what shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has breathlessly called the "mother of all broken promises"?
Albanese also knows he has a majority alliance in his tax rejig: the millions of Australians who will be better off under Labor's 'necessary' tax adjustment
Albanese will argue that by recasting the tax cuts, Labor is doing what the times require, that it is modernising the already-legislated tax plan for the post-COVID, Ukraine conflict-afflicted economy of high inflation, supply constraints and low unemployment.
He will argue that these are no longer the tax cuts skewed to the top end designed by yesterday's men Josh Frydenberg or Scott Morrison, but that these tax cuts are the embodiment of Labor's pitch to the hardworking suburbs, the ones who make a modern Australia work.
He will argue that the adjustments favour middle Australia who are hurting most from crippling cost of living pressures and that it would be irresponsible not to act now, even if it is at risk of annoying those at the top end whose July 1 tax benefit will be halved.
But Albanese also knows he has a majority alliance in his tax rejig: the millions of Australians who will be better off under Labor's "necessary" tax adjustment.
He might even salivate at the prospect of the Coalition following deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley's early take.
"We will fight this legislation in the parliament," she said.
"We don't even know what it will look like.
"We haven't heard the official announcement, although we know that it is breaking a promise and telling a lie."
And we haven't yet heard from Peter Dutton. Expect no rhetorical retreat from him.
Albanese famously said he enjoyed "fighting Tories".
We'll soon find out how good he is at it.
