Opinion

The PM’s most influential advisers are all long-term mates, drinking buddies, factional allies, family friends. All Hard Left, Hard Left, Hard Left. WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

The PM thinks it’s entirely unnecessary to mess with his line-up despite obvious signs some ministers are flailing. Here’s what Labor MPs really think of them.

THE FRONT DORE: It’s time to fess up. In the three years since he became PM, we’ve been wrong about Anthony Albanese. We’ve been unreasonable. Unkind. Definitely unfair.

Ben Harvey delivers a sobering history lesson to Basil Zempilas about life in opposition, plus the two cards to keep up his sleeve which could help the newly appointed leader defy the odds.

MITCHELL JOHNSON: Building a new stadium was always the best call even if the Queensland premier didn’t want to admit it and the environmentalists are kicking up a fuss about it.

RICHO’S TOP 10: If you are going to pay the big bucks it needs to be to a player who will produce when it counts. This is the guy I would invest in.

MARK RILEY: Peter Dutton has resurrected a go-to sweetener for Liberal leaders in electoral trouble. It has been used many times and worked once. That was 24 years ago. Will it do the job this time?

EDITORIAL: This Budget is designed with one intention — to pull the wool over the eyes of Australian voters who mostly, and who can blame them, are paying absolutely no attention.

CAITLIN BASSETT: In the big moments the best step up when it counts most. This is what I have found sets them apart after playing with one of them.

WATCH: In Up Late Ben Harvey highlights the parts of the Federal Budget Jim Chalmers doesn’t want you to know about — and why future generations will shake their heads at his $5 a week tax break.

BEN HARVEY: To justify his everything’s rosy narrative, Jim Chalmers travelled into the past to find a hypothetical future so he could compare it to the actual present.

PAUL MURRAY: Let’s be perfectly clear. This is the Budget that Australia wasn’t meant to have. And it shows. 

AARON PATRICK: There is huge pressure on Liberal leader Peter Dutton to reveal his economic plans in Thursday’s reply to the Budget.

EDITORIAL: It is an insult to our intelligence that the Federal Government cobbled together this half-hearted Budget because the Prime Minister delayed calling the election.

ANDREW CARSWELL: The Coalition’s recent policy stumbles and missteps, brain farts and ill-discipline that have combined to take the wind out of the Coalition’s sails is, well, highly advantageous.