Morrison and his parliamentary colleagues will be hoping that voters who receive the payments will express their gratitude at the ballot box and won't ask themselves how the government will help with the rising cost of living after the election.
It doesn't appear to have much of a plan beyond the election.
Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg are pinning their hopes for the longer term on rising wages. With the unemployment rate set to hit a 50-year low this year, they're hoping real wages will start to rise.
Treasury forecasts inflation of 3 per cent to June 2023 and average wage rises of 3.25 per cent, which would start to chip away at the rising cost of living. This would be the first time in years when wages growth outstrips inflation, if it happens.
But a rapid and unprecedented fall in unemployment and the worst staffing shortages in living memory are yet to drive wages up, so it's hard to see what's going to change in the next 12 months.
Arguably the A$8.6 billion ($9.3b) in payments, tax rebates and cuts to fuel excise the Government is rolling out over the next couple of months will make inflation worse and potentially force up interest rates, slowing the economy and pushing up the cost of mortgages.
What the Budget lacks is any real plan to increase the capacity of the economy – the rate at which it can grow without adding to inflation – or to boost productivity. These are nowhere near as exciting as $250 in the pocket tomorrow or cheaper petrol, but they will deliver an increased standard of living.
These benefits, however, wouldn't flow through to Australians for some years, probably long after Morrison has left politics, so why bother?
Frydenberg claims the Budget's targeted tax incentives will help small businesses become more productive and competitive.
From tonight, every $100 small businesses spend on digital technologies like cloud computing, eInvoicing, cyber security and web design will give them a $120 tax deduction.
According to the Budget papers, this initiative – which will cost A$1 billion over the next year – "will help strengthen business confidence, accelerate digital transformation and create jobs".
Most likely it will help business owners buy iPads for their children.
For every hundred dollars a small business spends on training their employees, they will get a $120 tax deduction.
But a few days at a course in cybersecurity, agriculture or hospitality won't do anything to increase the science, technology, engineering and maths skills Australia needs if we are to create high wage technical jobs.
In fact, Frydenberg didn't even refer to Stem skills in his speech, so perhaps that buzzword has fallen out of fashion.
Australia has come through the Covid-19 pandemic in remarkably good shape, and to the Government's credit it is saving most of the additional revenue a higher tax take and strong commodity prices are adding to the coffers.
The Budget spends A$30 billion of the A$115 billion in extra revenue and savings forecast over the next four years – just a little bit more than a quarter.
The deficit for 2022-23 is expected to be $78 billion or 3.4 per cent of GDP and over the next three years, this will more than halve to 1.6 per cent.
The Government doesn't meet its deficit forecasts, but this would be an impressive performance if it did.
What gives the forecasts a bit of credibility is that the Budget isn't particularly generous once the election is over.
A sign of the Government's cynical and short-term thinking is what it's doing with the low-and-middle income offset.
The one-off extra A$420 is in addition to an existing tax offset of A$1080 a year.
But what Frydenberg didn't mention in his Budget speech and is only buried deep inside the Budget paper, is that he'll scrap the entire offset after this year.
The net result is that 10 million Australians will be worse off by A$1080 a year.
But this will be after the election, so it either won't be Morrison's problem if he loses. If he wins, he can worry about it before the next election.
