In an unusual admission in Australian politics, Mr Shorten will tell the National Press Club on Tuesday that he privately expected his job as opposition leader to be harder once Mr Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott last September. "But I also hoped – like many Australians - he might elevate the politics of the day, he might take our national debate to a higher place," he will say, according to speech notes provided. "Instead, we have watched this Prime Minister shrink into the job, selling-out his principles in exchange for power." He branded the Turnbull government's performance on climate change, marriage equality, the republic, and the anti-bullying Safe Schools program as "diminishing" for all. On the policy front, Mr Shorten plans to use the nationally televised address to effectively kick off the election framework from Labor's perspective, targeting growing economic unfairness, tax policy, education, and training as the key policy concerns of a future Labor government.

He will cite a yet-to-be-released study by Labor's veteran social welfare expert and frontbencher, Jenny Macklin. He will describe the report - two years in the making - as neither a series of "announcables" nor a manifesto, but rather a document that "stretches a bigger canvas and serves a higher purpose". "Jenny's report is a prompt for new thinking on old questions: inequality, poverty, disadvantage and unemployment," he will say. "Among the recommendations is a commitment to 'full employment'." With a spate of plant closures and mass lay-offs, including the current disaster for 550 employees of Clive Palmer's Queensland Nickel refinery, Mr Shorten believes most working Australians feel less economically insecure than is understood, despite healthy retail demand suggesting otherwise. "Whole regions of our country have been rocked by closures," he will argue.

And where Mr Turnbull has lauded agility and the concept that "change is our friend", Mr Shorten says this is not relevant to displaced workers in Australia's struggling regions. "Visiting these towns and suburbs should remind us that the march of new technology is not merely something to applaud - it must also be a call to arms – a warning that Australians will need new skills and better training to win the jobs of the future," he will say. "Because behind the monthly headline of the unemployment rate, there is a more complex story to tell about work in Australia. "Right now, over one million Australians are under-employed - people working part-time who want to be working full-time (and) people employed as 'full-time' who are only offered part-time hours." The speech comes as the government deliberates privately over its tax reform plans amid reports it is trying to construct a policy mix that will deliver a tax cut for most people in the order of $10 per week.

But the policy vacuum publicly is causing frustration. On Monday, in what suggested a reversal of roles, Treasurer Scott Morrison put out a press release calling on Labor's shadow treasurer Chris Bowen to answer 28 questions about his policy announcements. In a cutting retort, Mr Bowen hit back, calling on Mr Morrison to say when the budget would be and what the government's core economic plan is. Follow us on Twitter