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."

In The Australian today:
"As usual, the Speedy Gonzales prize following last week's Holden announcement went to the premiers of the affected states, who sprinted to Canberra clutching their begging bowls. "

In The Australian today:
"It has been the longest goodbye. After all, it was 65 years ago that Ben Chifley launched the FJ Holden; only a few months before, his government had nationalised Qantas. That those twin symbols of the Chifley Labor government's post-war order are now crumbling is hardly surprising. But no matter how obsolete that order seems, its legacy remains at the heart of the political divide."