Election mode
After months of speculation, the prime minister has announced a 3 May election. That means a five-week campaign, and Capital Brief will be there every step of the way.
Parliament House in Canberra is a strange place at the best of times. It's a building oozing with power and intrigue, where journalists work within earshot of their sources and competitors and elected officials engage in all sorts of political theatre to generate attention. But this week was especially weird, and not even because of the presence of a fish on the floor of the Senate.
A budget the government never wanted to deliver, and that nobody expected to happen, was handed down on the eve of an election that today was confirmed for 3 May.
This was Capital Brief's second federal budget since we launched in 2023. For a startup, challenger publication aspiring to produce distinctive, original journalism, it’s a tricky event to cover. Budgets are intensely stage-managed by the government of the day (via the 80-year old lockup tradition) and also endlessly dissected by the media, to the point where it can often feel overwhelming. Our goal was to cut through the spin and focus on what truly mattered.
On budget night, in a special instalment of our Political Capital newsletter, chief political correspondent Anthony Galloway and economics correspondent Jennifer Duke wrote that Treasurer Jim Chalmers had crafted a budget that “feels far more suited to the times than last year’s effort” — which struck a different tone to much of what I read elsewhere.
