Today
From babies to Boomers: what’s in the budget for you
The 2024 federal budget includes power bill relief, more training places and additional rent assistance.
- Joanna Mather and Lucy Dean
Solomons, PNG win in $1b-plus Pacific play to ward off China
The government will provide funds for telecommunication cables in the Solomon Islands, help Papua New Guinea with a $600 million bailout and upgrade embassies.
- Andrew Tillett
- Opinion
- Federal budget
Forget policy, Albonomics is all politics
The budget is just more hard proof that Australia has not elected a government driven by policy since Kevin Rudd’s Labor in 2007.
- Richard Holden
Deeming rate freeze extension keeps pensioners $3300 in the green
The figure used to estimate how much retirees’ investments are earning will remain well below where it would otherwise be, easing fears of an “income cliff”.
- Lucy Dean
- Analysis
- Political leadership
Did Albanese just use the Bondi attack to promote a teal?
The prime minister praised independent MP Allegra Spender during a speech commemorating the six people who died at a Sydney shopping centre last month.
- Aaron Patrick
Here’s what we know is in Tuesday’s federal budget
Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down the Labor government’s third federal budget this week. Here’s everything we know ahead of the announcement.
- Updated
- Tom McIlroy
Yesterday
- Exclusive
- Infrastructure
Labor warned of risk from Victoria’s $200b rail loop
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King is fighting to keep secret the details of 30 projects that her hand-picked review said should be scrapped, as well as warnings over Victoria’s controversial Suburban Rail Loop, which will cost more than $200 billion to build and operate.
- Ronald Mizen
This Month
- Opinion
- Federal budget
Why did Labor drop a big policy change at 6pm last Friday?
While the media scrambled to get across a housing announcement late Friday, the government quietly dropped long-awaited changes to foreign student numbers.
- Phillip Coorey
Labor accused of ‘rewarding’ Hamas with Palestine vote
Opposition frontbencher Senator Jane Hume said there could be no sustainable two-state solution without the consent of Israel.
- Ronald Mizen
Palestinians’ aggressive lobbying upset Labor but it worked
Australia’s decision to support Palestinian UN membership follows seven months of intense, and aggressive, lobbying by a network of activists.
- Aaron Patrick and Tom McIlroy
Trade partners applaud gas certainty; trouble brews for Labor at home
Gas, not wishful thinking, is needed to get to net zero, says Anthony Albanese.
- Updated
- Phillip Coorey, Andrew Tillett and Jessica Sier
High Court hands Labor rare win on immigration detention
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles welcomed the ruling in the case of the man known as ASF17, who says he would face persecution if he was sent back to Iran.
- Updated
- Tom McIlroy
- Analysis
- Federal budget
The budget that could be make or break for Labor
Jim Chalmers is gearing up for his third and most important budget. If he spends too much and stokes inflation, he knows he’ll own the next rate increase.
- Updated
- Phillip Coorey
Military tensions flare on the road to stability with China
A near miss between a Chinese fighter jet and Australian helicopter show that friction remains despite improvement in ties between Beijing and Canberra.
- Andrew Tillett
This tree symbolises how Victoria became a financial basket case
After 300 years of withstanding the elements, the River Red Gum in Bulleen forced the North East Link to be redesigned as the cost of the project blows out by billions of dollars.
- Patrick Durkin
New gas projects receive support amid Labor unease
Resources Minister Madeleine King has backed the development of the Narrabri gas field in NSW, and the Queensland Labor government has given the green light to four new projects in the Bowen Basin.
- Phillip Coorey
- Opinion
- Canberra Observed
Budget week is time for Dutton to roll a few Jaffas down the aisle
In the same week Peter Dutton went in to bat for the koalas, Labor flew the flag for gas.
- Phillip Coorey
Behind the PM’s $3b ‘bailout’ of Victoria’s most expensive road
Experts blame a $10 billion blowout for the North East Link on CFMEU disruptions, a failed tender process and crazy design decisions to pander to community groups.
- Patrick Durkin, David Marin-Guzman and Gus McCubbing
Australia’s defence chief rejects Chinese spying claims
In his first comments on dramatic helicopter near miss, General Angus Campbell said a Chinese pilot had acted unsafely and unprofessionally.
- Andrew Tillett
Labor backs gas ‘to 2050 and beyond’
The government has shed its ambivalence towards gas and adopted a strategy that locks in its use for several more decades along with measures to promote carbon capture.
- Phillip Coorey
