In The Australian today:
Speaking in Senate estimates this week, Treasury secretary John Fraser may have been less eloquent than Jonathan Swift but his message was no less ominous.

In today's The Australian
Oh, the poetry of economics! Exchange rates float, economies limp and tax brackets creep. No wonder the field attracts fertile minds. But it would be better if they kept their imaginations under control.

In The Australian today

“The taxation concession on superannuation earnings in retirement is unsustainable,” Chris Bowen said last week. And “someone has to show the courage to say it and to deal with it”.

In The Australian today

Joe Hockey’s second budget would have left many asking, as Peggy Lee did years ago, “Is that all there is?” As for Bill Shorten’s budget reply, it made Peggy Lee’s advice, faced with a disappointing answer to her question, to “break out the booze”, seem like sound common sense.

In The Australian today
"Aristotle opens the Metaphysics with one of his most striking phrases: “By their nature, all men desire to know.” Quite so. But not at the University of Western Australia."

In The Australian today
Whatever else last year’s budget may have achieved, it certainly placed fairness at the heart of the political battle. And whatever this year’s budget may bring, the ­government will be working overtime to ensure it is less vulnerable than its predecessor to being cast as unfair.

In The Australian today
"It’s hardly about negative gearing. Rather, what the Left really wants is to increase income tax on the middle class. As it lacks the courage to do that directly, fiddling the definition of income is the coward’s way of achieving the same goal."

In The Australian today:

You can’t step into the same river twice. But the bathwater is a different matter. It just gets colder and nastier each time.

Today in The Australian
"The trouble, it seems, is not that we spend too much: it’s that we tax too little. And the Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance, chaired by Labor senator Sam Dastyari, is unlikely to leave much uncertainty about the culprits: those ­tax-dodging, revenue-shifting multinationals. "

In The Australian today

"As the search for budget savings focuses on the age pension, the challenge for the government is to reconcile rigour, fairness and sustainability. With the pension intended to help those who cannot reasonably help themselves, it seems absurd that public money is going to the well-off. But in a retirement income system that is struggling to meet its objectives, simply tightening access to the pension carries risks of its own. "

In The Australian today:

Thursday’s murder by Somali terrorists of 150 mainly Christian students at Kenya’s Garissa University College provided a horrific backdrop to the Easter weekend. And with more than 200 young Christian girls kidnapped in Nigeria by Boko Haram still in captivity, the spotlight is once again on Africa and on the continent’s struggle to find peace and prosperity.

In The Australian today:
The good news is that Mike Baird has been re-elected Premier of NSW. The bad news is that there was a large swing to Labor, un­deserving though it was.

In The Australian today:
"As Singapore, arguably the most successful city-state in contemporary history, mourns the death of Lee Kuan Yew, it starts a new chapter in its history. And with Hong Kong also in the midst of a difficult transition, the “queens of the further east”, as an early British colonialist called them, face ­far-reaching economic, social and ­political challenges. "

In The Australian today:

"As things turned out, Malcolm Fraser’s prime ministership was not a fresh start; it was merely the final act in the long crisis of the 1970s."

In today's The Australian
"There is a direct link between the NSW election and Australia’s deteriorating international competitiveness. "

In The Australian today:
"Between 2008 and 2014, electricity transmission and distribution costs increased by some $400 per household in Queensland and New South Wales, where the poles and wires are government-owned, but by around $250 per household in the privatised systems of Victoria and South Australia."

In The Australian today:
"With jihadist violence continuing to escalate, the acid test of today’s national security statement will be the actions it proposes."

In The Australian today:
"With Joe Hockey warning that the imminent Intergenerational Report will knock people “off their chairs”, the cost of our retirement income system is unlikely to disappear from the front pages anytime soon. But reconciling fiscal sustainability and community expectations is every bit as politically challenging as it is technically complex. "

Today in The Australian
"It's the simplest measure of all: the cash the commonwealth spends each month compared to the cash it receives, stretching back to 1973."

In The Australian today
If the merest spark sufficed to set off the firestorm consuming the Abbott government, that is because so many grievances have been smouldering beneath the surface. No doubt, the circumstances the government has faced might defeat even the ablest leadership; but it is hard to deny that there have been many unforced errors, worsened by an apparent insensitivity to mounting concern in the party room, frustration among senior ministers and a deteriorating public mood.

In The Australian today:
"While Canberra focuses on the big issues, such as whether Prince Philip should have been awarded a knighthood, the Australian dollar burns."

In The Australian today:
"The voice of the people, the Romans used to say, is the voice of the gods. And on Saturday, that voice decisively rejected Queensland’s LNP government and the policies it stood for. "

In The Australian today
' “IN the ancient world,” Karl Marx famously wrote, “the class struggle took the form mainly of a contest between creditors and debtors.” Ever anxious to breathe new life into old theories, Greek voters on the one side and the EU on the other seem set to give Marx’s claim a fresh run. '

In The Australian today:
"Although the US economy is growing more strongly than the International Monetary Fund expected in last October’s World Economic Outlook, that acceleration will not suffice to boost global economic growth.

In The Australian today:

"The French love the idea of France, Americans their country’s shining ideal of liberty. Australians simply love their country as it is. And nothing is more integral to the achievement we celebrate on Australia Day than the easygoing tolerance of difference. "

Today in The Australian:
"Last Thursday, in a dramatic policy reversal, the Swiss National Bank abandoned the cap it had maintained since 2011 on the value of Switzerland’s currency. The move, which took markets by surprise, saw the currency rocket from 1.20 to 0.85 Swiss francs per euro, before settling just above parity. But while that 23 per cent appreciation may have stabilised the Swiss franc, the shock waves will reverberate for months to come."

In The Australian today:
"One thing is certain: Labor left Queensland in a mess. And it is equally certain that Campbell Newman has been willing to take the hard decisions needed to turn the situation around."

In The Australian today
"As the Australian summer dims memories of the Lindt cafe, the terrorist attacks in Paris are a savage reminder of the world we’re in. Yesterday, European leaders gathered to honour the victims; but barbarism will hardly be defeated by pious pleas for unity. "

In The Australian today:

“It’s not difficult to end up like Europe. What is hard, once the rot sets in, is to prevent the slide into debt from becoming a tumble.”

In The Australian today:
"When our Christmas Price Index, which measures the cost of purchasing all the items listed in The Twelve Days of Christmas , was first compiled, Australian suitors intent on giving their true love the full complement could save $36,000 by hopping on a plane to the US, with the price difference across the Pacific more than sufficient to fund a romantic trip in first class for two.

In The Australian today:

"With this week’s mid-year economic and fiscal outlook projecting deficits through to 2019-20, Australia’s prosperity is as threatened as our peaceful way of life. But while the horrors of terrorism have brought Australians together, the economic risks this country faces are tearing our political system apart. Whether the government can regain the initiative, focusing the nation’s attention on the dangers of simply letting our fiscal situation drift as export prices plunge, is the crucial question for the year ahead."

In today's The Australian
"It's the season for miracles. Unfortunately, today’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook is likely to show they are in short supply. But if divine intercession is too much to hope for, surely a sensible discussion about public spending is not. And with MYEFO adding to the focus on the proposed GP co-payment, health expenditure should be a good place to start."

Today in The Australian
"It's certainly been good news for Australian consumers. In October, a litre of petrol cost about $1.50; with prices now down to $1.25, the typical motorist is saving $60 a month."

In The Australian today

"With Victorians flocking to put King Herod in charge of the nursery, the federal Coalition could be forgiven were a sense of anxiety intruding like a creeping fog. Whatever its weaknesses, the Napthine government was neither incompetent nor corrupt; that it was thrown out after a single term suggests an electorate that is impatient, intolerant and unforgiving."

In The Australian today:
"Like watching a dog hit by a car, the dying takes longer than one could possibly have imagined. But as budget measure after budget measure writhes in agony, the government has struggled to adapt to the situation it finds itself in."

In The Australian today:
"Ain't love grand! Spell-bound, you see what isn’t there. But though it made the cow-eyed audience at the University of Queensland swoon, virtually none of the $US3 billion Barack Obama pledged for the Green ­Climate Fund is new money."

In today's The Australian
'"If way to the Better there be,” wrote Thomas Hardy, “it exacts a full look at the Worst”. And who could imagine a worse predicament than the eurozone’s?"

In The Australian today:
"Founded exactly six years ago, the G20 is battling to prove its continued relevance. Yes, Aust­ralia has never hosted a gathering of world leaders as eminent as that taking place in Brisbane; but the question is whether the enormous effort and expense will ultimately enhance global prosperity."

In The Australian today:

'According to the polls, the next premier of Victoria will be a man with close links to criminals. Not that Labor leader Daniel Andrews shows any embarrassment about his relationship with Victorian Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union secretary John Setka, who, Andrews claims, “has the confidence of his members”.'

In The Australian today:
"The Ruler of Dubai can sleep easy. No such luck, however, for 500 workers at a Muswellbrook coalmine. In a recent decision, NSW’s Planning Assessment Commission rejected Anglo American’s proposal to extend the mine’s life because it might harm the Ruler’s Darley thoroughbred stud and the Coolmore stud, located nearby."

In The Australian today:
"The decision by the US Federal Reserve to end quantitative easing does not close the era of easy money in the world’s largest ­economy. "

In The Australian today:
"To have lived through the late 1960s and early 70s is to have experienced an unforgettable sense of exuberance. From Stockholm to Ottawa, Bonn to Canberra, a tidal wave of social ­upheaval resulted in far-reaching political renewal."

In The Australian today:
"The Barry Spurr affair is terrifying in the shoddy treatment of Spurr; in what it says about our universities; and in the lack of outrage that either has evoked. "

In The Australian today:
Australian Labor Party has trapped itself in a shrinking pool of ideas
'What a difference five years make. In 2009, Kevin Rudd called competitive neutrality “essential”; now, according to Labor senator Stephen Conroy, the Keating-era requirement that publicly owned businesses not be artificially ­advantaged is a “right-wing ideology” that reflects “deeply flawed ratbaggery”.'

In The Australian today:

"Had Julia Gillard been the heroine of a Gothic romance, she would have put a stiletto through
Kevin Rudd’s heart and gone mad. Instead, she worked the numbers, became prime minister and
has now written a book."

In The Australian today:
"Even for those not steeped in the lore of cricket, reading John Howard on the Menzies era is like hearing Richie Benaud comment on Bradman. There is the insight that only comes from having played at the highest level; the capacity to distinguish brilliance from skill and chance; and perhaps hardest in those one greatly admires, the willingness to call out error."

In The Australian today:
"The nation’s attention is riveted on terrorism, but ultimately, only domestic prosperity can underpin our national security."

In The Australian today:
"Every year, Transparency International publishes a “corruption perceptions index” that ranges from 0 to 100, where higher values indicate cleaner government. On that measure, Australia, which scored 88 a decade ago, is now down to 81."

In The Australian today:

"John Key’s election victory is rich in lessons for the Coalition on how to govern and for Labor on the costs of remaining a wholly owned subsidiary of the unions."

In The Australian today:
"What game is Treasury playing? Last Wednesday, Mathias Cormann, Minister for Finance and Acting Assistant Treasurer, launched a Minerals Council monograph by Professor Tony Makin on Australia’s declining international competitiveness."

In The Australian today:
"It is not easy to imagine a less controversial statement than Tony Abbott’s claim that the arrival of the First Fleet was the “defining moment in the history of this continent”. Nor could it possibly be contentious that British settlement provided the foundation for Australia to become one of the most prosperous societies on Earth."

In The Australian today:
"That the release of the cost-benefit analysis of the National Broadband Network has generated as much heat as light is perhaps unsurprising. The debate about the NBN has always been drenched in politics. And the analysis itself is lengthy and complex, making its findings difficult to communicate and absorb."

In The Australian today:
"Strewth Proust, Swan’s on the loose! With the memoirs of the world’s greatest treasurer shaping up as the stocking stuffer of the season, Wayne Swan’s remembrance of deficits past adds mightily to this year’s choice of spitefully disappointing Christmas presents."

In today's The Australian:
"However uncertain the future may be, what cannot happen will not happen. In Australia’s case, we cannot run large budget deficits forever. At some point, debt accumulation, combined with loss of confidence and external shocks, will force painful adjustments."

In The Australian today:
"There is plenty to criticise in the government’s handling of its proposed data retention laws. But the hysteria with which they have been greeted completely misses the point."

In The Australian today:
"If you are going to steal,’’ they say in America, ‘‘steal big.’’ Jonathan Moylan did just that: by issuing a fraudulent ANZ press release claiming the bank had withdrawn its support from the Maules Creek mining project, he knocked $300 million off the market capitalisation of Whitehaven Coal."

In The Australian today:
"The carbon tax may have gone, but the players have not moved on. For the Greens, its resurrection is only a matter of time. Labor, ever reluctant to face realities, pretends to maintain the rage, much as it did with the GST. Meanwhile, the lessons of the fiasco, and its implications for the Abbott government, are ignored."

In The Australian today:
"Defeat can be turned into opportunity if it is properly managed. With budget measure after budget measure risking rejection in the Senate, the government should use the threat it faces to improve the measures, strengthen public understanding of why they are needed and lay surer foundations for continuing reform."

In The Australian today:

"With Clive Palmer, Labor and the Greens combining to destroy the government’s budget, it is important to understand just how serious our fiscal crisis is."

In The Australian today:
"In the house of the hanged, said Cervantes, it is unseemly to talk about the noose. But someone needs to remind Bill Shorten of Labor’s fiscal record. From 2010 on, every day brought pledges of a speedy return to surplus; in the end, all Labor left was a sea of red ink."

In The Australian today:
"With RET-seekers descending on Canberra by the corporate planeload, honest citizens need to clutch not only their wallets but also their sanity. After all, as the Red Queen told Alice, it is easy to believe the most impossible things if one has enough practice; and nobody works harder at that than the Greens and their fellow travellers."

Today in The Australian
"NOT every nanny encourages her charges to take up alcohol and tobacco. But then again, not every health minister is like Nicola Roxon. "

In The Australian today:
"In this case too, as with climate change, “the science was settled”: plain packaging would “reduce the consumption of tobacco by about 6 per cent and the number of smokers by 2 to 3 per cent”.

Today in The Australian:
“In the game of the round ball,” Jean-Paul Sartre ruefully observed, “everything is complicated by the presence of the opposing team.” So too, alas, in politics. But as in soccer, there are own goals as well: and the government is set to score one with its regulations on illegal timber imports. Unless it changes course, the credibility of its commitment to deregulation will be severely damaged.

In The Australian today:
"Without the ground having been adequately prepared, Joe Hockey and his landing party have struggled to secure a foothold on the beach of entitlement. And as they prepare to crawl through hostile terrain in the Senate, more causalities lie ahead. What could have been done to avert the losses will fuel controversy for years to come. Earlier release of the Audit Commission’s dire fiscal predictions would have helped. So would hammering home the fact that Labor’s promises were entirely unfunded, and would never have been delivered. The Department of Finance’s incoming government brief said as much; but although the government dropped hints, it couldn’t quite bring itself to break the bad news."

In today's The Australian
"Day after day, serried ranks of QCs struggle to make sense of Clive Palmer’s finances. But the abdominal showman’s business dealings are a model of clarity compared with the PUP’s economic policies, which take inconsistency to infinity and beyond."

In The Australian today:
"When power and principle collide, the smart money bets on principle getting a bloody nose. And when all the major parties agree on changes to the electoral system, yellow lights should start flashing. But, despite those risks, the reforms proposed by parliament’s joint standing committee on electoral matters are eminently sensible and deserve to be legis­lated as speedily as possible."

In The Australian today:

"It's not a tax, it’s a charge. A tax is an unrequited payment governments secure by compulsion. A charge is the fee paid for a service. And the proposed GP co-payment isn’t even mandatory: whether doctors impose it is up to them."

In The Australian today:

"Tough but measured. So far, however, only the toughness has registered with voters. That the budget is measured has been drowned out by the shouting."

In The Australian today:
"With well-off students angrily demanding subsidies that will be paid for by taxpayers with far lower lifetime incomes, self-­interest is plainly alive and well at the nation’s universities. Good thing, too, for if competition could harness it to productive uses our aspiring Che Guevaras might get an education worth having."

In The Australian today:
"Having failed at the art of fiscal management, Labor has now descended into its kitsch. Time and again, Labor heralded a return to surplus, only to leave the country drowning in red ink. Reduced to the last refuge of the profligate, Bill Shorten’s budget reply speech ignores the problems altogether, offering yet more promises built on a marsh of unreality."

In The Australian today:
"One thing is clear: this budget is a herculean effort. But while it has put our fiscal position on the right track, we still have miles to go, and the path is fraught with risks."

In The Australian today:
“It was not intended to make anyone giggle,” treasurer Arthur Fadden said of his ‘‘horror budget’’ of September 1951. The wool boom unleashed by the Korean War had nearly trebled the terms of trade, adding a massive 7 per cent to real gross domestic income. With unemployment falling below 1 per cent of the labour force, the inflation rate had risen to an all-time high of 25.6 per cent and seemed likely to increase further. Yet by 1953 inflation had plummeted to less than 2 per cent, setting the scene for two decades of solid economic growth.

In The Australian today:
The audit commission is right: there is a strong case for reforming the age pension. But those changes must be part of a broader restructuring of our retirement incomes system. For unless that system can provide reasonable income security in old age, the changes will prove neither economically desirable nor politically sustainable.

In The Australian today:
"Nothing better summarises the report of the National Commission of Audit than its title: Towards Responsible Government. “Responsible” means not merely accountable but vested with a duty of care; “towards” reminds us how just far we have to go."

In the Australian today:
"The nation’s mood was grim that day..."

In The Australian today:
"Watching Barry O’Farrell’s resignation recalled Enoch Powell’s conclusion to his biography of Joseph Chamberlain that “all political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and human affairs”.

In The Australian today:

"That affluence can buy influence is hardly news. What makes Clive Palmer different is that he flaunts it. Repeatedly, he tried to seize control of the Liberal Party in Queensland. When that failed, he set up his own political movement."

In The Australian  today:
"Tony Sheldon’s call for a campaign of “civil disobedience” against Qantas has been hailed in the labour movement. “It’s new thinking,” said the shadow Minister for Offence, Senator Stephen Conroy, “we’ve never tried being civil before.”

In The Australian today:
"There is no passion, said Georges Clemenceau, like that of a functionary for his function. He must have had the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in mind, as it battles the Coalition’s election commitment to abolish it."

Today in The Australian:
"As the Abbott government prepares its first budget, it faces some stark realities. This year will see our sixth budget deficit in a row. And although there may be some short-term improvements, the time bombs Labor left will result in deficits for years to come. Without fundamental change, the country’s fiscal position risks becoming unsustainable."

In The Australian today:
“Let us rain compassion in the shape of regulations,” urged one of the first accounts of European settlement in Australia.

In The Australian today:
"Fear was all Labor offered voters in Tasmania and South Australia: fear of “cuts”, fear for jobs, fear of change. The mixed outcome, which could see Jay Weatherill cling to power, may convince the party of that message’s potency; but it is neither a credible basis for rebuilding Labor federally nor a viable ­answer to the profound difficulties Tasmania and SA face. "

In The Australian today:
"Far from being an emerging superpower, Russia is a weak state, wracked by cronyism and corruption, and overly reliant on exports of oil and gas. That hardly means Russian aggression in Ukraine can be ignored or condoned. But detestable as he may be, Vladimir Putin is no Hitler and the Crimean peninsula is not the Sudetenland."

In today's The Australian:
"It has hardly been a stellar week for the flailing kangaroo. Not waving but drowning one day, it was not flying but soaring the next. If the aim was to confuse, Qantas’s mixed messages did the trick."

In The Australian today:
"With Qantas apparently on today’s cabinet agenda, the flying kangaroo seems beleaguered in each major area of its operations. But while Tony Abbott has taken a debt guarantee off the table, repealing the Qantas Sale Act not only faces Senate hurdles but may not be sufficient to address the airline’s problems."

In The Australian today:

"As Labor’s grasp on power was slipping, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd entered into school funding agreements with the states that will entrench disadvantage and perpetuate poor performance. If the state premiers are genuinely committed to quality education, now is the time to scrap those agreements and start again."

In The Australian today:

"Ever since the first G6 summit, held outside Paris in the wake of the 1973-74 oil shock, economic summitry has been condemned to a cycle in which initial enthusiasm degenerates into stage-managed ritual. With the raptures that greeted the formation of the G20 now a fading embarrassment, the weekend's gathering of finance ministers and central bankers did little to rise above a footnote in the annals of international relations."

In The Australian today:
"It is an honour to be rebutted by a former prime minister. But Julia Gillard’s claim, (”Laws and Fair Work”, Letters, Feb 14) that I “misled readers” in describing Labor’s changes to the industrial relations laws does not stand up to scrutiny."

In The Australian today:
"And then there were none. Late in May last year, Ford announced it would cease its vehicle assembly and engine production in Australia in October 2016; just before Christmas, General Motors Holden followed, with its closure due to occur by the end of 2017; and last week was Toyota’s turn, with its manufacturing operations also set to close by the end of 2017. "

In The Australian today:
"After the 1983 election, when half the Australian workforce were union members, barely a third of the ALP’s new MPs thanked the unions in their maiden speech. By the 2013 election, union membership had fallen below 20 per cent of the workforce; but more than 90 per cent of Labor’s new MPs devoted part of their first speech to praising the union movement."

In The Australian today:
"Malcolm Turnbull is right to check whether the ABC and the SBS provide taxpayers with value for money. But to ensure good use of the community's resources, it is not enough to ask whether the public service broadcasters are doing what they do properly; one must also ask whether they are doing the right things. "

In The Australian today:
"Cecily, you will read your Political Economy in my absence", Miss Prism instructs the young heiress in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. But, the prudish governess hastens to add, "the chapter on the Fall of the Rupee you may omit. It is somewhat too sensational. Even these metallic problems have their melodramatic side."

In The Australian today:

"History may not teach us much, but it does show that you can't keep a bad idea down. And this bad idea resurfaces with a regularity that, if it applied to ageing human bodies, would deprive prune growers of their livelihoods."

In The Australian today:
"Australians are ambivalent about their cities. From AD Hope's Australia - with its denunciation of "her five cities, like five teeming sores,/ ... Where second-hand Europeans pullulate/ Timidly on the edge of alien shores" - to Barry Humphries' Gladiola Duchy of Moonee Ponds, the metropolis has been where Australians live, not where they dream. The result is a society profoundly uncertain as to what it wants its cities to do, and even more uncertain as to how they should do it. "

In The Australian today:
  
"Australian cities are suffering a double blow: despite ambitious project announcements, public investment has fallen as governments try to rein-in spending; but as infrastructure costs continue to climb each dollar of that investment is yielding less and less relief to frustrated commuters."

In The Australian today:
"The urgent need to repair the budget bottom line will dominate politics this year. After Labor's failure to blaze a path back to surplus following the global financial crisis, despite repeated promises to do so, it falls to Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey to demonstrate their fiscal prowess. "

In The Australian today:

"The news would have sent the champagne corks popping. Merely two days before Christmas, Ross Gittins, the sage of the Fairfax press, had crunched the numbers and the verdict was in: Rudd-Gillard-Rudd may not have been models of fiscal rectitude, but Howard was far worse."

In The Australian today:

"It's official: Wayne Swan was good for the birds. That's according to this year's Christmas Price Index, which measures the cost of buying the items listed in The Twelve Days of Christmas in Australia on a basis strictly comparable to a similar calculation by the PNC Financial Services Group for the US."

In The Australian today:
"Exactly a year ago, Wayne Swan conceded that the Labor government would not achieve its much touted budget surplus. Since then, the $5.4 billion surplus Swan promised in 2010-11 for 2012-13 has melted into a $47bn deficit. As for the benign outlook Swan's 2012-13 budget projected, its cumulative surplus of $16.3bn to 2015-16 has become a $123.8bn sea of red ink."