There are between 200,000 and 500,000 people who want to access drug and alcohol services who are unable to because there are not enough doctors and clinics. What will be accomplished by forcing drug-addicted welfare recipients to join the queue?
The government's announcement that jobseekers in Canterbruy-Bankstown will be drug tested shows a departure from original plans to use wastewater to choose locations.
Malcolm Turnbull is starting to deliver the centrist government many voters expected of him. But in doing so the PM will also incite a perfect storm of resistance from the conservative insurgents within his own party.
Capital expenditure has fallen 33% since the Coalition came to office in September 2013. No wonder growth is struggling, writes opposition finance spokesman Jim Chalmers.
Treasury secretary John Fraser has taken the extraordinary step of banning journalists' mobile devices from the annual budget lockup.
Contradicting earlier reports, the government now says the proposed inland rail line will make back all of the whopping $8.4 billion that will be spent on a line through inland NSW.
The government initially claimed the bank levy would help financial competition. That rationale has vanished amid questions over how much the levy will actually raise, Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer write.
Banks expect that the government's new bank levy will be a tax write-off, which will reduce the overall impact on the banks by around one-third.
And is the fabled "post-budget bounce" a real thing?
Victoria Police are considering whether to charge Cardinal George Pell with historic sex abuse, the fallout from the bank tax continues, and Donald Trump claims he had the "absolute right" to share information with Russia. It's the news you need to know, by Charlie Lewis and Max Chalmers.
