![Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has asked the UK to divert more aid to the Pacific following China's push in the region.](http://web.archive.org./web/20180418070323im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/h/0/y/l/x/b/image.related.wideLandscape.460x259.p4za72.png/1523996150221.jpg)
Julie Bishop asks the UK to divert more aid to the Pacific after Brexit
Australia has cut its aid to a fraction of what the UK donates but now it wants its ally to devote more to the Pacific.
Australia has cut its aid to a fraction of what the UK donates but now it wants its ally to devote more to the Pacific.
Julie Bishop has made massive cuts to the foreign aid budget and a junior minister has told a London audience why.
John Alexander predicts a "war to come" unless the Turnbull government takes decisive action.
"Yet again, we are seeing the hardworking taxpayers of NSW being ripped off by a perverse and unfair distribution model".
“Surely not again" - Advocates call on the government to spare overseas aid further cuts
How much would it cost to deliver personal income tax cuts worth more than a sandwich and a milkshake a week?
Tax promise comes as Prime Minister fends off leadership questions
A Turnbull government "battlers budget" risks undermining economic stability, a leading economic forecaster has warned, as the government lays the ground work for personal income tax cuts this year.
Government spending on tax breaks is set to hit a record $170 billion in 2017-18.
Malcolm Turnbull knew or ought to have known that the claims he made about Labor's housing policy were likely to be wrong.
Treasurer Scott Morrison has warned international companies will flee the country while Australians are sitting on the beach this summer in the wake of the biggest tax cut in US history.
Fresh government forecasts have slashed $10 billion off federal deficits for the next four years, including $5.8 billion in the current financial year.
Scott Morrison wants you believe the budget's strong enough to fund tax cuts. It isn't, as the update makes that clear.
Treasurer Scott Morrison will deliver a better than expected mid-year budget update a week before Christmas, as company profits and high employment figures stir the economy back to life.
Australia's return to budget surplus will be built on the back of a 14 per cent increase in the income tax take.
Without robust government, nothing stands between citizens and a rapacious corporate sector.
There are still good people crunching the numbers to show that it would be possible to adequately compensate the disadvantaged while changing the GST mix and/or the rate.
It's too early to be sure, but not too early to suspect that, if we and the other developed economies keep travelling the way we are, conventional wisdom about what constitutes good economic policy may soon need to be turned on its head.
The big banks won the last great war against government interference, 70 years ago.
When Australian leaders speak about tax, their words tend to be utter tosh.
So much government aid goes to people who don't need it, and politicians seem helpless to stop it.
Before the budget Treasurer promised 'good debt' and 'bad debt'. What we got was more sensible.
The budget pushed low-income earners' marginal tax rate up towards 100 per cent.
The Turnbull government's budget measures may hit women earning below-average wages with an effective marginal tax rate of 100 per cent.
The economic future that the Treasury has forecast for Australia is, sadly, a nonsense.
Scott Morrison's budget projections rely entirely on orthodox economic thinking about what drives wages. Unfortunately that orthodox thinking is demonstrably wrong.
For students of the politics of economics – my special subject – this clothes-pinching budget has been a feast. Oh no, it's "Labor-lite". Shocking! Actually, it's a budget that ticks all the boxes for Malcolm Turnbull and, by extension, his parliamentary followers – something their silent acquiescence suggests they realise.
The infrastructure budget doesn't even deliver the Coalition's pledged Barton Hwy upgrade, MP says.
Anthony Albanese says Labor should have claimed victory after Coalition's 'ideological surrender'.
Adjusted for tricks, there's no chance of a surplus for a long time.
Repairing the damage of the Abbott Total Opposition years, will take time. But the budget is a big and quite calculated start.
Scott Morrison's hit on banks shows his preference for stunts over meaningful policy development.
The Liberals have always been right to portray themselves as the party of smaller government.
Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson has joined calls for an investigation into the leaking of plans for a levy on Australia's biggest banks, saying it is possible insider trading took place.
Tobacco hurts men, alcohol hurts women. Surely that can't be why we're soft on drinkers?
Labor would require ATO to reveal details of companies the Tax Office cuts deals with as part of plan to recoup $5.4 billion from multinationals.
Will Scott Morrison's big spending, big taxing, big borrowing budget impart a big fiscal stimulus to the economy in the coming financial year? Not so much.
Unless we act seriously to preserve our threatened planet, all the budget's nuances will be meaningless.
The budget seems to have elevated hypocrisy and backtracking to new heights of shamelessness.
Spending will stay at or near record highs while revenue rapidly climbs to match.