Budget Night
The Federal Treasurer presents the budget on budget night, which since 1994 has been the second Tuesday in May. In modern times, the budget has always been broadcast live from Parliament House on the ABC and Sky News Australia. It is hosted on the ABC, without interruption from 7:30 pm to 8 pm, normally followed up with a report by a panel assessing the changes, benefits and flaws in the budget.
Before the presentation of the budget, the day is spent behind locked doors briefing media and interest groups on various aspects of the budget. This is known as the budget lock-up. Those invited to attend the briefings are not allowed access to the outside world until the Budget has been presented by the federal treasurer.
A convention in Australian politics is that the leader of the opposition delivers a "right of reply" speech in Parliament, which is also broadcast on television.
Read more about this topic: Australian Federal Budget
Famous quotes containing the words budget and/or night:
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Like a fiend in a cloud
With howling woe,
After night I do crowd,
And with night will go;”
—William Blake (1757–1827)