Turnbull's search for electoral sweet-spot a win for voters

• ANALYSIS

Budget may do the trick in the electorate, the immediate threat switches to opposition within.

Uni reforms show PM does not want a repeat of Tony Abbott's 2014 horror show

• ANALYSIS

There is good and bad in the Turnbull government's measured university changes .

PM's new scare campaign is going to work

• ANALYSIS

The noisy parliamentary battle over renewable energy rages on

Telstra wins contract to manage cancer records

The Turnbull government is pushing ahead with plans to place sensitive medical records under corporate management and will announce on Thursday that Telstra Health - a division of Telstra - has been awarded the contract to manage a new national cancer screening register from next year.

The do no harm budget

• ANALYSIS

Never before has a federal budget – especially one crafted in such tricky fiscal and economic circumstances - been called on to do so much of the political heavy lifting.

It's all about fairness, nothing else matters

For all its enormous complexities and competing demands, Scott Morrison's first, and potentially only, federal budget will sink or swim on one question alone. And it's a question that has little to do with the dismal science nor even with the reams of graphs, tables, and explanations accompanying the economic blueprint.

Morrison's big fiscal play

• ANALYSIS

The pre-election budget is not expected to contain any significant cash benefits for voters.

Unions back crackdown on tax breaks for rich

Tax breaks used by the wealthy are exacerbating deficits and eroding essential services, while making life harder for ordinary households, according to the ACTU.

Coalition shifts on income tax to tackle bracket creep

Treasurer Scott Morrison's first budget will now include previously ruled-out changes to income tax to arrest bracket creep,