PM

Many of the 2017 budget ideas seemed to take a leaf out of Labor's position, such as fully funding the NDIS and introducing a levy on foreign workers to raise more than a billion dollars to reskill Australians. Is this a budget that Labor could support? To provide his perspective Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen spoke with PM from Canberra.

With a $6 billion bank levy on big four banks, major infrastructure spending, full funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and education reforms; the 2017 federal budget has all the characteristics of "a good Labor budget" according to ABC economics correspondent Stephen Long. The former Treasury official provides further insights: is the Government engaging in smoke and mirrors and are there any major holes in the budget?

Is the Medicare levy just a personal tax increase? What in practical terms will this budget do to ease the cost of living? Treasurer Scott Morrison speaks with the ABC's chief political correspondent Louise Yaxley about the finer details of the budget and its impact on everyday Australians.

The big four banks will take a big tax hit, while also receiving corporate tax cuts. Is the budget good for big business? Jennifer Westacott, the chief executive of the Business Council of Australia spoke with PM about the wider impact of the budget on business.

While the Government has junked a range of unpopular welfare savings from the 2014 and 2015 budget; there are a comprehensive set of new measures that will punish those who fail to meet their obligations to look for work.

Even before the budget, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) had been calling for an end to attacks on people who are unemployed by releasing a short Social Security Snapshot dispelling the myth Australia has a 'welfare blowout' and unemployed people are the cause of it. Cassandra Goldie, the CEO of ACOSS spoke with PM to discuss the realities of the budget for people on welfare.

Thousands of Port Power football fans are heading to China, to watch what will be an historic game for the AFL. Port Adelaide will take on the Gold Coast in Shanghai this weekend, in the first game played for premiership points outside of Australia and New Zealand. The showdown is the centrepiece of the Power's 'China strategy', aimed at developing relationships with China, on and off the field.

This week marks a year since the furnaces cooled at the coal fire power station at Port Augusta in South Australia's mid-north. The region is staying afloat on the hopes of renewable energy projects. But some former workers are still dipping into their redundancy packages to get by.

A group of researchers in Victoria have started a project to revolutionise the way records are managed across Australia's child protection system. The sex abuse royal commission has revealed the many obstacles abuse survivors face when they try to access their own historic files. A team of researchers at Federation and Monash Universities will spend the next three years redesigning the way records for children in state care are kept. The research team includes a former state ward, who was herself one of half a million children institutionalised during the twentieth century.

As Fairfax journalists continue a week-long strike over job cuts, the company's share price has risen on the news of a take-over offer from a private equity firm. If the bid from TPG is accepted, the media empire would sell its metropolitan newspapers and the highly lucrative real estate business Domain.