Budget should be front and centre, not talking about the Coalition
The Liberals, with or without the Nationals, have scant chance of winning the next election, but they owe it to the nation to be a half decent opposition, if only to keep the government honest.
When the government handed down the mid-year budget update on December 17, the event was understandably overshadowed by the fallout from the Bondi massacre just three days before.
One of the more significant revelations in the update, which did not bode well for an already creaking budget, was that childcare had supplanted aged care as one of the top five spending pressures.
