From inside the lockup political and economic journalist Tim Colebatch speaks to Michelle Grattan about his assessment of the budget.

He says the income tax cuts are “well targeted” and that he can’t see any “significant negatives” from the budget. However Colebatch is “surprised the government hasn’t made more effort to find other sources of compensating tax income or making bigger spending cuts in areas where they thought there was waste”.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.