Peter Dutton said the quiet part out loud this week when asked why he was taking so long to release his nuclear costings.

"Part of the reason that there's been a delay is we've gone to announce it a few times, to be honest, and the government's latest disaster has happened on that day [and] we've decided that we'll let people concentrate on how bad the Albanese government is."

The admission rang a bell.

Twice this year, Canberra had been aflutter with rumours that nuclear details were imminent and then... they weren't.

Both occasions coincided with bad news for the government, one at the peak of Andrew Giles's immigration troubles and the other when Fatima Payman joined the crossbench.

It's hardly earth shattering. Political parties time announcements to maximise media coverage all the time.

And Anthony Albanese himself had a similar strategy in opposition when the heat was on Scott Morrison. He bided his time, let the anger build, and then "kicked with the wind in the final quarter".

But whereas back then Albanese opted for a small target approach, ditching "barbecue stoppers" like negative gearing and franking credits that had tripped Labor up in the past, this time around Dutton is going for broke.

Nuclear is just one of several "big bang" ideas, along with super for housing, migration cuts, and scrapping the 2030 climate target.

All controversial, and all so far light on detail.

How will migration cuts be achieved? "We'll have more to say about that."

How much super will first home buyers be able to use? "We'll have more to say about that."

How much would taxpayers fork out for nuclear plants? "We'll have more to say about that."

The third question may be answered next week. But like anything in the energy space, any costing will be hotly contested and highly uncertain.

As Dutton's quip suggests, though, the politics comes before the policy detail. The ideas are less about their contents, and more about his desire to tap into currents of anger about energy bills, housing and the cost of living.

A mouthful of bills

Albanese had the opposite problem this week. There was plenty of detail to boast of after an eye-watering 45 bills passed the parliament.

But tying them into a compelling story was a bit harder, and while Dutton was hammering his cost-of-living lines over and over again, the PM was getting caught in the weeds.

"I'll give you one example," he told ABC News Radio.

"The Liberal Party voted last week against, they voted in the Senate and then voted even when it came back to the House against anti money laundering legislation.

"Now, what this was aimed at is making sure that if someone rocks up to an auction and buys a home with a bag of, a suitcase full of cash, with $2 million reported on it, it had to be reported to the appropriate authorities."

A bit of a mouthful. And if you think that's niche, the next bill he mentioned was "simple legislation which after the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth would replace the references in legislation from Queen Elizabeth II to The Sovereign".

It's an insight into the business of governing, which isn't always glamorous. But it's a peculiar thing for the PM to find himself talking about as he rounds the corner to an election.

It's beginning to look a lot like an election

And there was no shortage of telltale signs this week that an election will soon be upon us.

Labor ministers were seen scowling in front of Medicare banners, Dutton took to the Hunter to tee off on wind turbines, and Greens leader Adam Bandt helpfully declared he would be delighted to work with Labor in a hung parliament. 'Tis the season.

Hanging over it all is the still-gloomy economic picture.

National accounts figures reminded us how thankless the economic conditions are for the government.

The economy grew, but only just, continuing a pattern that has stretched on for nearly two years.

The sluggishness is, as Treasurer Jim Chalmers said, largely the result of (and in fact the purpose of) high interest rates.

This quarter, the economy would have contracted were it not for government spending, mostly the wages of frontline workers employed by state governments.

But the government spending figure fed the Coalition's accusation that governments are making the inflation problem worse.

It gives Chalmers little room to move if he wants to extend further cost-of-living relief without jeopardising the chances of an interest rate cut in the new year, which are already slim.

Serenity to accept the bills you cannot pass

As the PM tried to boast about 45 different bills this week, he spent just as much time defending one of the few that didn't pass: Tanya Plibersek's environmental reforms.

Those reforms had already had much of the life squeezed out of them. Plibersek had planned an overhaul of environmental approval laws, but this was delayed indefinitely and instead she ended up with a watered-down bill to create a "tough cop" to enforce existing laws.

Even that couldn't pass. Theories abound over which straw broke the camel's back. Was it WA Premier Roger Cook's eleventh hour intervention, or was it Fatima Payman who killed it?

Whatever the answer, it is clear the call was Albanese's, not Plibersek's. In fact, Plibersek embarrassingly seemed to be among the last to know.

It rekindled the simmering tension between the PM and one of his most prominent rivals. Albanese's decision to shift Plibersek out of her beloved education portfolio and into the environment ministry has long been viewed as a slight, and the last week has done nothing to hose down that impression.

A shift at the UN

A relatively quiet week in Canberra was in sharp contrast with drama all over the world. There were constitutional crises in France and South Korea, a presidential pardon in the US, and plenty more besides.

Australia made waves of its own at the UN General Assembly in New York when it changed a longstanding position on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The country joined most of the world, but split from the United States, by voting for Israel to "bring to an end its unlawful presence" in the territory, which includes Gaza and the West Bank, "as rapidly as possible".

It's a return to a position held until 2001. As with most things relating to Israel and Gaza, it was the source of domestic political controversy.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong suggested the government believed the resolution "on balance ... will contribute to peace and a two-state solution", while Peter Dutton accused the government of "selling out" Israel to win "green votes". 

It's a fierce argument that will spill over into the next election campaign.