The year began with the spectre of disunity hanging over the Morrison Coalition government, now reduced to a minority government for the last six months of its parliamentary term. Despite the PM referring to his side of politics as a “Muppet show”, as the months ticked by the government gradually got down to the business of governing, focusing on economic and budgetary management, while attempting to defuse as many political issues as it could prior to the election. The Treasurer Josh Frydenberg (the Liberals' third in six years) began to impose his own initiatives in his expansive new role. The Labor opposition was celebrating the fact that government was losing control of parliamentary business, as getting the required numbers to pass legislation was becoming a roulette wheel of uncertainty. Ostensibly, the parliament, the media, the public service and perhaps the electorate were all waiting for the Coalition government to be consigned to history after just two tumultuous parliamentary terms. But Morrison, ever his own man, did not follow the script and events took a very different path, partly by design and partly by accident.