Normally a government's third budget is a bit like the final movie in a trilogy: it's the nice culmination of a narrative thread and leaves everyone satisfied. But Budget 2016 still leaves a lot of the story untold, writes Greg Jericho.

The Treasurer, Scott Morrison, promised that it would not be a typical budget; and give him credit, he certainly delivered.

Normally a government's third budget is about tying up the narrative of the past three years and getting ready for the coming election. It's like the third movie in a trilogy. Yesterday, however, Scott Morrison delivered a budget with little sense of narrative, in which he suggested Australians are no longer interested in winners and losers, and which contained a tax cut that only helps those earning an above-average income.

By your third budget you would hope that you have a good story to tell. Given the third budget generally coincides with a government's bid for re-election you would also hope the story you're telling is the nice culmination of a narrative thread that has everyone leaving satisfied. In essence, when wrapping up the trilogy you want the third budget to be more Toy Story 3 than The Godfather: Part III.

Paul Keating was very much of this view. By his third budget in 1985 the ALP had already won re-election and so he was free to focus purely on his economic narrative.

He suggested that, "the evidence of our achievement is indisputable", and that rather wonderfully, "the Hawke government stands before the people of Australia tonight proud of its record of economic success."

Never let it be said that Keating was one to hide his light under a bushel.

Peter Costello in 1998 was very much in the Keating mode. His budget was also the last before the 1998 election, but it wasn't an "election budget" as such, given in the end the election wasn't due for another five months.

Costello would boast, "this coming year is the third year of the journey. We will finish the first leg in good shape. We have achieved our goal".

But, he warned, "the journey is not yet finished. We should not stop now".

By 2004 Costello was well beyond the trilogy, but he was definitely in a pre-election mode. The 2004-05 budget was the one that doled out a fair bit of candy to the voters - the baby bonus, tax cuts, more money for those on Family Tax Benefit A and a lowering of the income test of Family Tax Benefit B.

It was the middle class welfare budget - and was also the one which saw revenue of 25.6 per cent of GDP (compared to 23.9 for 2016-17).

Costello's last budget in 2007 was very much the election pitch. Again tax cuts were promised, surpluses were promised to ever grow - as was revenue even with the tax cuts. Costello's final budget predicted by 2010-11 government revenue would be 22.9 per cent of GDP. Instead it came in at 21.6 per cent of GDP - out by a mere $18.3 billion.

And therein lies one of the problems of the trilogy that attempts to extend its narrative.

Wayne Swan in his third budget in 2010 looked further ahead and rather infamously promised that "we now expect a surplus in three years, three years ahead of schedule."

Three years later when he delivered the 2013 budget this storyline was rather changed.

Gone was the three years early line; in fact, gone was the surplus completely - Swan arguing, really at least three years too late, that "because of our deep commitment to jobs and growth we have taken the responsible course to delay the return to surplus."

And so we come to Scott Morrison, delivering the third instalment of the trilogy, but grappling with his first instalment.

The problems with this are evident in the headline of one of the glossy budget papers: "Sticking to our national economic plan." It ignores the fact that the plan was so bad the Liberal Party decided not to stick with the two men who developed it.

So what to do? In Morrison's case it appears not a lot.

His budget speech opened with talk of a "10-year enterprise tax plan" and a "20-year defence industry plan".

When your big opening is about things that will occur well outside the budget parameters you know there is not much in the way of concluding a narrative - nor much in the way of believable figures.

What was there was a bit odd. A tax cut - not unusual for an election year - but one that massively favours the wealthy.

In 2013-14, earning more than $80,000 put you in the top 25 per cent of taxpayers. But what is more odd, especially given the spin provided to newspapers on Tuesday about the budget appealing to women, is that such workers are overwhelmingly men. In 2013-14, only 16 per cent of women earned more than $80,000, compared to 32 per cent of men.

While the Treasurer talked long about it being an average income tax cut, that really only makes sense if you are talking about male full-time workers.

Women full-time workers earn on average just $69,846, and when you include all workers - full-time, part-time and casual - of both genders, the average annual income falls to just $59,571.

For the "average" worker, bracket creep that would see you earn more than $80,000 is a long way off - especially given record low wages growth.

And given 50 per cent of taxpayers in 2013-014 earned less than $54,369, the Treasurer's use of average certainly is not applicable to "middle Australia".

Little wonder the usual tables showing the impact of the budget on households of various incomes was not included.

The company tax cut, however, is at least an easily understandable narrative line. It's one of appealing to the base.

Given the overall lack of measures in the budget, much of it seems little more than a response to the ALP's agenda - such as the superannuation changes.

But the cigarette tax is a prime example of how lost this narrative is. When the ALP introduced it last year, Morrison suggested it was evidence that the ALP "have a very small appetite" when it comes to tax reform.

And yet now it is the top line in the budget's "major savings initiatives" table.

Earlier this year, Malcolm Turnbull suggested the budget would, in effect, be "the tax white paper". And yet the best he could boast on that angle was a target to lower the company tax rate by 2026-27.

There is, let us just say, a far bit of water to flow under the bridge before that is set to happen.

In his press conference in the budget lock-up, Morrison appeared defensive even before questions were asked. It was as though he knew what he was selling was unlikely to come to fruition.

Given the lack of sitting days until the election is called, it is unlikely any of these spending or tax initiatives will be passed. It's a budget that has to survive an election campaign, and on this score there is a rather odd entry in the budget papers.

In Budget Paper Number 2 at the end of the expenditure measures table there is an entry titled: "Decisions taken not yet announced."

This entry is a common one that gives the Government the ability to announce a few things later on in the year - it's especially handy during an election campaign.

The entry in this budget contains $476.5 million, $624.8 million and $502.2 million worth of spending decisions "taken but not yet announced" for 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 respectively.

Now that suggests about $1.5 billion in new spending to be announced during the election campaign. But curiously in 2019-20 the budget has $1.98 billion worth of spending cuts that have been "taken but not yet announced".

That's a very large amount of spending cuts in one year - roughly a third of the projected $5.95 billion deficit for that year.

It would seem with this budget, there is still a lot more of the story to be told.

Greg Jericho writes weekly for The Drum. He tweets at @grogsgamut. His personal blog is Grog's Gamut.