Peter Martin is the Economics Editor for The Age.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has blamed the media for the failure of its census hotline and blamed an overseas denial of service attack for the failure of its census website in a strongly worded submission to a Senate inquiry that also attempts to deflect blame for the overwhelming of its website on its contractor IBM.
Incoming Reserve Bank chief Philip Lowe has appealed to the Turnbull government to help him out with economic management by borrowing big for infrastructure, saying there's only so much further cuts in interest rates can do.
The Turnbull government is considering a radical shakeup of Australia's superannuation system that would pit banks and industry funds against each other for the right to manage the deposits of every new entrant for at least two years.
Limiting the amount anyone could contribute out of their own money into tax-advantaged super on top of employer contributions was never retrospective, but those who thought it was can relax. The government is imposing a limit by another means.
For all his talk last year about explaining complex issues and building a case, Malcolm Turnbull has done it rarely.
Twenty five years on from Australia's last recession, there's no sign of a downturn and economic growth is accelerating.
Treasurer Scott Morrison has ramped up the war on dissidents in his own party over over superannuation, distributing a briefing paper portraying those hurt by his budget measures as high-income tax minimisers.
The Grattan Institute has identified superannuation as the most important test of Malcolm Turnbull's leadership.
Asked why it had backed down, the ATO said though a spokeswoman it had made a political judgement.
The Turnbull government has been accused of extending Australia's "book drought" by sitting on draft legislation designed to give blind, partially sighted and dyslexic Australians the same sort of access to audio and braille books that's available overseas.
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