The Latest Articles by Michelle Grattan

The federal budget gave a much-needed, but very modest, increase to those on JobSeeker and associated payments. However, it didn’t address that other important issue of the unemployed: how to help as many JobSeekers as possible to get into work, whether full- or part-time.

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation’s politics team.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has condemned the plan to enshrine a constitutional Voice to Parliament as “a symptom of the madness of identity politics which has infected the 21st century”.

Anthony Albanese now has a firm promise of a state visit to the United States this year, and an invitation to go to China.

Reading Margaret Simons’ recently released biography of Tanya Plibersek brought to mind an interesting question. What sort of Labor government would we have if Plibersek, rather than Anthony Albanese, had become Labor leader in 2019, and then won the 2022 election?

The government’s planned Housing Australia Future Fund has hit a roadblock.

Peter Dutton needed to sketch a big picture in his Thursday night budget reply – to look like an alternative prime minister. He failed to do so.

Will the budget make inflation worse? Are its boosts to welfare payments just the first step for the Labor government? Could the projected one-off surplus be followed by another one or more? What (if any) of the budget measures will the Coalition oppose? There’s quite a bit about this budget…

Tuesday’s budget will forecast a surplus of about $4 billion for this financial year – the first Commonwealth budget surplus in a decade and a half.

A $14.6 billion four-year cost-of-living package will be the centrepiece of Labor’s second budget, which seeks to balance spending restraint with its election commitment to not leave people behind.

Real wages are expected to start growing slightly earlier and grow more strongly than previously forecast, according to the latest Treasury estimates.