But isn't revenue the best comparison, which means the US and Japan are smaller governments than ours? No. Both are running huge deficits - as a share of GDP, 7.9 per cent in the US, 9.1 in Japan - which will have to be paid for by future taxpayers. Spending, not revenue, is the test of the size of government.

Australia and New Zealand aim to run a Western welfare state while spending far less than other Western countries. The gap between us and them is huge: on average, governments spend 42.2 per cent of GDP in advanced economies, 43.1 per cent in the G7, and 48.2 per cent in the European Union. So far, you would have to say, more spending has not brought more success.

On Sunday, Australia will gain two new taxes. The carbon tax initially will raise $4 billion a year: 0.3 per cent of GDP, rising to 0.4 per cent as it settles in. Revenue from the mining tax can't be estimated accurately, but Treasury puts it at just $3 billion, or 0.2 per cent of GDP, while private-sector economists say it won't even raise that.

Neither tax will change the reality: Australia is one of the lowest-taxed countries in the Western world. If Tony Abbott becomes prime minister next year, as seems likely, he will try to repeal both taxes, and will probably succeed. But it will be only a temporary victory. Both taxes will return, probably in different forms. Both taxes will be levied by future Liberal governments.

You can predict that, because in the past the Liberals have rejected so many Labor reforms, only to adopt them later. Medicare, for example, was initiated by the Whitlam government as Medibank, scrapped by the Fraser government, reinstated by the Hawke government, then embraced proudly by John Howard and his health minister, Tony Abbott.