Why are we having a fourth budget in two years?

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Australia has had more budgets in the last few years than I've had hot dinners.

In just two years, we've had three, and the federal government is about to hand down another one on Tuesday.

Budgets are typically delivered in May — so why have so many been handed down recently?

Let's take a closer look.

Feel like we only just had a federal budget?

Well, your feeling would be correct.

Back in March, the former Morrison government made a bold bid for re-election by handing down a big-spending budget that sought to counter surging cost-of-living concerns.

However, the May election saw Labor wrest power from the Coalition, and immediately warn it had received a "dire" budget situation from its predecessors.

In Australia, when new governments come in to power they inherit a budget from their political opponents.

Rather than use that — and, subsequently, adhere to the former government's policies — they can throw it out and come up with their own.

That's what this week's budget will be, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers warning the country's deteriorating fiscal position means Labor cannot afford extra spending beyond its election commitments.

It's a method as old as time. When Gough Whitlam won the 1972 election, he asked a taskforce to look at the previous Coalition government's spending to see if anything could be cut, so that he could then fund his own policy priorities.

Will Tuesday's budget be a proper budget?

It's more of a mini-budget, that will outline how the government will fund its election promises, seek to repair the budget and alleviate growing cost-of-living pressures faced by many Australians on the back of high inflation, rising interest rates and slow wage growth.

Labor had flagged during the election campaign that it planned to hold a mini-budget in October so that voters would know that, if it won the election, it would take a scalpel to the previous government's policies and spending plans within the first six months.

That would allow it to provide a rough guide of where it wanted the budget to start heading.

If Labor had waited to do anything until May next year — when budgets are typically handed down — it would have been almost a year before it handed down its own budget and outlined its strategy. And that would have been weird.

The October budget also buys the government time — allowing it to ease in before beginning the more difficult process of addressing long-term structural problems or being forced to make politically complex decisions.

Take the Stage 3 tax cuts that, predominantly, benefit high- and middle-income earners, for example.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to the federal election promising to honour the tax cuts, and — while he's ruled out making any changes to them in this budget — he's reserved the right to make changes down the track.

Is it just because of the election we've had so many budgets?

Budgets are typically handed down in May but they aren't set in stone — and can be moved around.

In 2020, the budget was delayed until October because of the pandemic and the resulting economic recession.

The recent May election also threw a spanner in the works.

Given we saw a change of government — which last happened in 2013 — the new government has been keen to stamp its authority on government finances early, with its own spending plans.

However, it's also using this opportunity to get up-to-date economic forecasts from Treasury, given how quickly the global economic environment is deteriorating.

What else can we expect in the budget?

The Treasurer has said the budget would not be "fancy" nor "flashy" but would be responsible, with Jim Chalmers seeking to manage expectations of what cost-of-living relief the budget would offer, beyond Labor's election promises, such as policies aimed at reducing the cost of childcare and medicines.

It's expected to be relatively basic, with unavoidable spending on the "big five" areas putting the budget under increasing strain, including aged care, health and interest payments on debt.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), in particular, will be a huge budget challenge, with the government revealing that, since March, estimated costs over the next four years had risen by $8.8 billion.

Getting those costs under control will be seen as an important test in how Labor handles its fiscal challenges.

And, on the back of global economic uncertainty, the stakes are clearly significant for the new government's first budget.