The best starting point to predict the agenda for politics in 2018 is to look at what was left unfinished at the end of last year. The legacy of 2017 was that most of the key issues from last year have spilled over.
The legalisation of same sex marriage has been decided but a testy debate about religious freedom remains. The Ruddock committee will report in March and then the battles will resume.
Dual citizenship of MPs remains on the radar with several more cases to be decided in March once the High Court has reported as a Court of Disputed Returns.
The outright rejection of the type of Indigenous Constitutional recognition as proposed by the Uluru Declaration will surely have to be revisited.
The Banking royal commission which the government was dragged into unwillingly will get under way. Discomfort for the government and the wider business community will ensue.
The future and wellbeing of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru will not go away, nor will the disputes over federal funding of schools.
Energy policy remains unclear and summer will test the power generation system. If failures occur there will be recrimination, flowing into debates about the future of both coal and alternative energy sources.
"Turnbull has some favourable economic statistics, such as unemployment figures, working for him, but he still has to weave them into a convincing story of better times ahead."
There are opportunities for both sides of politics, government and opposition, in the leftovers from 2017. The balance looked to have shifted somewhat back towards the government in the final weeks of last year. The task of Malcolm Turnbull will be to begin the new year as he ended the last. On the other hand Bill Shorten has to prove that December was just a blip and not a permanent change of his fortunes for the worse.
Halfway through the government's term the next election is still the opposition's to lose, but Turnbull can look forward to a better year. There is a reasonable chance that the government will be blessed with greater political stability and more favourable economic circumstances.
Political stability is largely in the government's own hands. Turnbull may be moving into clearer air and a stronger position within conservative circles. But his party and Coalition opponents will not vacate the field and issues like religious freedom, banking, and energy policy may provide ammunition for them with Tony Abbott remaining unpredictable.
Economic circumstances may tip towards the government, beginning with community sentiment. A recent international Ipsos survey reported by Fairfax concluded that there was global optimism that '2018 will be a better year'. Australians were not among the most optimistic, but 76 per cent of us apparently think 2018 will be an improvement on last year.
Turnbull has some favourable economic statistics, such as unemployment figures, working for him, but he still has to weave them into a convincing story of better times ahead, including personal tax cuts, guided by a government more attuned to growth than the opposition.
An important element of this story will be the government's credentials as a champion of free trade, especially through Turnbull's determination to hold the Trans Pacific Partnership together in the face of rejection by Donald Trump.
Trump's own performance and standing may be important to the Australian government too. If it is justifying company tax cuts for the biggest corporations by pointing to what the USA has done, then what Australians think of the US president matters. Turnbull needs Trump to have a good year.
How Shorten reacts will be crucial. He may be hurt by some of the leftover issues like dual citizenship, which make him look hypocritical and shifty. But the greatest danger to his standing, if the government is buoyed by better economic and political news, will come if his posture seems nagging and negative. He needs to be fresh and positive.
There may even be a federal election in the second half of this year, though this option poses the danger for Turnbull of adverse public reaction to another early election.
March will be crucial to early momentum. First will come the Tasmanian and South Australian state elections. They will probably be followed shortly afterwards by several more federal by-elections which will again test Labor, the Greens and the Coalition.
John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University and chairs Concerned Catholics Canberra-Goulburn.