It's budget day.
And while the federal government has already announced several measures ahead of Tuesday night's big moment, the full details don't drop until the evening.
Here's a quick guide to get you up to speed with what's happening and what to watch out for.
What time is the budget announced?
7:30pm AEST / 7pm ACST / 5:30pm AWST.
That's when federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers will stand up in Parliament House in Canberra to make his budget speech, which will be televised and live streamed.
That usually goes for about half an hour and ends with the Treasurer officially submitting the budget papers to parliament.
Where can I watch the budget speech?
It'll be broadcast on the ABC's main channel as well as on ABC News 24 from 7:30pm AEST.
You can watch that on your TV, but you can also watch the ABC News 24 live stream here.
We'll also be live-blogging the whole thing on the ABC national news website, with a live stream of the speech at the top of the article.
After the budget speech, the ABC will broadcast a one-hour news special on the budget, when David Speers will interview Mr Chalmers and Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor.
What's going to be in the budget?
We don't know exactly what's in just yet, but we do have a few early details.
While the budget isn't officially announced until the evening, the government usually drip-feeds the media about its big-ticket measures by making announcements to build up a bit of hype in the days beforehand.
The biggest news is that the government has forecast a small budget surplus, of about $4 billion, this financial year — more on that further down.
Here's a quick wrap of some of the measures we already know about:
- A cost-of-living relief package of about $15 billion — including power bill rebates
- Changing rules to allow people to buy two months' worth of common medications on a single prescription — up from the current 30-day limit
- Cheaper childcare package — lifting the Child Care Subsidy rate for families earning less than $530,000
- A 15 per cent pay increase for aged care workers
- Establishing the Net Zero Authority to help with the transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy generation
- Establishing the National Anti-Corruption commission — $262.6 million over four years
- A $737 million package to crack down on vaping and reduce smoking
- Funding for Australia's nine national collecting institutions — $535.3 million over four years
- Defence spending — about $19 billion over four years
- Asking the offshore LNG industry to pay its tax revenue sooner.
However, the nitty gritty details will not be officially revealed until the papers become public at 7:30pm AEST.
And there will be a lot of papers.
When the then-Coalition government published its budget papers in March last year, there were more than a dozen different documents, some with hundreds of pages.
Dedicated journalists from major news organisations are allowed to go though these pages in the hours before the speech, so they can prepare stories and analysis to be published once that 7:30pm embargo lifts.
This what's called the "budget lock-up", where journalists are shut up in a room with the budget papers from 1.30pm.
What does budget surplus mean?
There's always a few key phrases thrown about around budget time, and they're used so frequently that there's this assumption that everyone knows what they mean.
This year, it looks like the main buzzword is "surplus".
Mr Chalmers made a point of making sure we heard about it in his announcement in the early hours of this morning via a press release embargoed for midnight — no, he wasn't giving a press conference in the middle of the night before an important speech.
A budget surplus means the government spending less money than it takes in.
However, while "surplus" may be the word of the day, it's important to remember another word: "forecast".
That's because the budget is not what has already been spent, but what will be spent — and, crucially, it's about what is yet to be earned.
The Treasury can make calculated estimates about how much will be earnt and spent, based on approximations and assumptions, but the true figures may end up being a little different as the year goes on.
That's why our stories say "the federal government is forecasting a budget surplus of about $4 billion this financial year".
So what does a budget surplus mean for me?
A budget surplus doesn't mean the rising cost of living will immediately ease up.
In April, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced the inflation rate for the year to March was at 7 per cent, which was down from the December peak of 7.8 per cent.
However, annual prices during the first quarter of this year still rose by 1.4 per cent.
And this figure was higher than what economists' forecasts were predicting.
That prompted the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to raise the cash rate 0.25 percentage points earlier this month, meaning another increase to many mortgage payments.
And there still could be more rate rises to come.
"Inflation in Australia has passed its peak but, at 7 per cent, is still too high and it will be some time yet before it is back in the target range," RBA Governor Philip Lowe said last week.
"Some further tightening of monetary policy may be required to ensure that inflation returns to target in a reasonable timeframe, but that will depend upon how the economy and inflation evolve."
The quarterly inflation figures showed the "gas and other household fuels" category rose 14.3 per cent.
Overall, food prices went up 1.6 per cent over the March quarter — with the "fruit and vegetables" category going up 2.4 per cent.
So, while the scale of price rises is slowing, the price for essentials is still going up.
