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ANALYSIS: Jim Chalmers' third budget may as well have an audience of one. And her name is Michele Bullock.
That's because it's the Reserve Bank governor's interest rates trigger finger that has shaped the treasurer's thinking.
In normal circumstances, racking up back-to-back surpluses would allow a two-year-old, first-term government to splurge some pre-election delight on the population.
But that's not possible in the current environment where the dreaded inflation dragon threatens to singe anyone too bold.
Throw too much sugar at households who've long endured the bitterness of the high cost of living and Bullock will simply take away what sweetness Chalmers has doled out.
So almost every bit of help that's been thrown at households comes under the banner of busting inflation.
Chalmers needs Bullock not to see through the camouflage.
The $300 thrown at 10 million households and $325 for one million businesses for energy relief, is not merely designed to suppress power bills. It's also geared at attacking broader inflation – this is why there's been no discrimination between rich and poor households.
Similar thinking with the freezing of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme scripts – a two-year freeze for non-concession cardholders, and five years for pensioners – as well as the 10 per cent increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance.
READ MORE: All the cost-of-living relief for Aussie households
Electricity, medicines and rent are all pressure points for the community but they're also key components of headline inflation.
And here's the political mischief at play in Chalmers' budget.
Boiled down, Bullock's remit is pretty simple: to keep the Consumer Price Index within 2 and 3 per cent, while keeping as many people employed as possible.
So the calculation in the budget is that if the RBA governor's kept happy, she won't reach for the interest rates lever.
And if she's REALLY happy, the governor might even lower interest rates.
Given we are within 12 months of an election, the Labor government is more than keen to engineer that outcome towards the end of this year.
READ MORE: What's in the federal budget for women?
Treasury reckons the $300 thrown at every household's power bill will reduce inflation by 0.5 percentage points, which – you guessed it – would see CPI cut to 2.75 per cent in 2024-25, possibly by the end of this year.
This is well below the RBA's current estimate of 3.2 per cent – a number that is not conducive to interest rates being slashed any time soon.
And if unemployment remains relatively low (Treasury says it'll reach 4 per cent by the end of June and then track at 4.5 per cent for the next three financial years), a pre-Christmas interest rate cut might well be on the cards.
That is the political calculation at the heart of the budget. It's a mechanical manipulation of the CPI which, if it works, will deliver an electoral benefit.
As to whether it works, we don't have to wait long to find out.
Bullock and the Reserve Bank board meet in five weeks and they'll effectively set about marking the treasurer's homework.
If the RBA accepts Treasury's numbers and updates its own forecasts, Chalmers will have won a minor political battle in the bigger war against inflation.
And Chalmers will count his third budget a strategic success.
