The political biff is back.

The pandemic-enforced harmony between Labor and the government, and what Scott Morrison calls the “good habits” of cooperation, are doomed.

The political focus is shifting to recovery from the Covid-19 economic devastation, and unanimity on the tax reform, industrial relations and deregulation fronts will be sparse.

This will be clear when a mini version of parliament — limited in size by coronavirus restrictions — returns in the second week of May to debate matters not directly linked to suppression of the infections.

Labor has readily submitted to the rulings of top-level health and medical authorities on the response to Covid-19, as has the government.

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That docility will disappear when the issues are those in which both Labor and the government claim separate and superior expertise.

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, wants the opposition to concentrate on holding the government accountable rather than promoting its own policies — a departure from the strategy under Bill Shorten, who outlined a substantial policy package well before the election.

But there will be competing policy positions with, for example, Labor wanting reform of the enterprise bargaining system to boost wage growth, and the government favouring “productivity” measures, which could include wage and condition reductions.

Voters might not be impressed by a return to partisan politics. Parliament currently has its highest trust rating of the past five years, earned mainly because it hasn’t been sitting.

Essential Research polling found trust in federal parliament was just 26% in September 2016, 30% in October 2017, 28% in September 2018, and 35% in March last year.

The trust level hit 53% this month, according to an Essential survey released Tuesday.

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The peak faith in the national parliament might be related to the absence of serial political turmoil over the past two months, but more likely it was an appreciation of bipartisan efforts during an unprecedented crisis.

That unity and that approval are likely to diminish as Albanese makes clear he wants to be active in a broader discussion which will be partisan.

The evidence for this growing activism is in the data.

Albanese did just 15 media interviews in the first 20 days of April. He then did 20 interviews in five days to Friday this week. He wants to talk about emerging issues.

As shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers told ABC radio on Thursday, “We want a big conversation about what the nation looks like after the coronavirus wards empty.”

The government has not identified what it wants parliament to consider when it returns in May.

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It is expected it won’t proceed with its religious freedom legislation, having failed to get an amen on two previous versions, and it might drop its industrial relations “ensuring integrity” legislation because it has other plans in that arena.

Legislation might be needed to secure information gathered by the proposed Covid-19 tracing app, barring it from police and intelligence agencies and from court-ordered interventions.

Certainly there will be economic considerations in advance of the October budget, and that recovery conversation is going to get wild on some topics.

The virus crisis has already encouraged unique ideas, such as broadcaster Alan Jones’s suggestion Tony Abbott be made head of the World Health Organisation. This pushed the daft-o-meter needle well into the red. Maybe Jane Halton, who was department secretary when Abbott was health minister, but not Abbott.

That type of singular thinking could infect the economic debate about to get under way.

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Both sides of parliament agree the priority will be to create or secure millions of jobs. The conflict is over how to do it.

A pointer to the government’s preferred recovery path this week came from Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, who nominated reform targets as “the way we tax income generation, consumption and land”.

Lowe’s comments were endorsed by Morrison.

The consumption tax reform recommendation is being seen as an argument to increase the GST and widen its application, a move that would be unpopular wth consumers if there is no tax trade-off, and would be complicated by the need for states to agree.

The federal government has ruled it out so far.

The “income generation” reference is being taken as approval of corporate tax cuts, which the government is still keen to get parliament to pass in some form. The notion behind it is the hotly contested view that big businesses would use the tax savings to hire people, and the cuts would encourage investment.

“We do have an uncompetitively high rate at 30 cents in the dollar,” the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, said on Thursday.

Albanese, in what was meant as a pre-emptive strike against big corporate tax relief, said: “Out of this, we need an economy that works for people, not the other way around.

“And what that means is making sure that we keep people in employment.”

Voters might not be comfortable with a more aggressive Labor profile, although Albanese could be seen as a principled curator of party values.

And if the government is seen to be pandering to business rather than the battlers, Morrison’s standing might take a blow.

At present he is the suppression superman, the leader for crisis management. Those plaudits might evaporate should he fail to create jobs swiftly or to protect households from lingering hardships.

Ever an optimist, Morrison is banking on the goodwill that has appeared during the Covid-19 emergency flowing through to its aftermath, as he said in revealing comments to reporters on Thursday.

He said on cooperation and wide engagement: “I can’t recall a time in my public life or in public policy where there has been so much of this occurring.

“And I think that’s creating some good habits, good habits that I would hope we would be able to continue in a non-Covid crisis environment.

“Whether that will be done, we’ll see, but I’ll remain forever optimistic.”

