The litany of deeply flawed and damaging policies enacted by the Coalition while in office just seems to keep on growing, even though it's been more than 18 months since they were booted out.
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Some, like robodebt and the attempted privatisation of visa processing, were so bad the government that created them had to kill them off.
Others, like the unconvincing AUKUS boondoggle and the enormously regressive stage three tax cuts, will hang around the necks of taxpayers for decades.
But none may prove to be more costly than the shockingly bad GST deal Scott Morrison struck with Western Australia five years ago, when the former government legislated changes to the way GST revenue was shared between the states and territories.
Up to this point, the Commonwealth Grants Commission used a complicated formula that took into account the size and density of population, social and economic needs and revenue raising capacity to work out how to equitably distribute the proceeds of the consumption tax among all the jurisdictions.
Under this arrangement, the amount each state and territory received could vary, no more so than for Western Australia, whose revenue-raising abilities were heavily influenced by fluctuations in global commodity prices.
When the value of exports like iron ore, nickel, copper and other minerals went up, extra royalties would pour into the WA government's coffers. As a result, its share of GST revenue would go down. The reverse would happen when global commodity prices went off the boil.
But in 2018 the Morrison government, worried about its grip on crucial seats in WA, set a floor for the state's GST share.
Because the revenue is distributed from a fixed pool, this change has meant the other states and territories get less.
To head off any howls of protest from the ACT, NSW, Victoria and the like, the Morrison government guaranteed the commonwealth would make up the difference through a six-year transition period that extends to 2026-27.
At the time, it was claimed the policy would cost $6.7 billion over eight years. But it has since blown out to almost $34 billion.
And on Friday and the states and territories demanded that the federal government turn this temporary no-worse-off guarantee into a permanent commitment.
Labor, which is desperate to hold onto the WA seats it won at the last election, shows no inclination to dump the dodgy Morrison deal, no matter how economically egregious it is.
It is yet another unwanted burden for the nation's income taxpayers.
