In pictures: The federal budget newspaper front pages 2025
The Sydney-Morning Herald is blunt in describing the budget's headline tax cut as a "brazen pitch to voters" ahead of a looming federal election campaign.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with their big sack of cash appear well out in front of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton but something looms in their path: Trump 2.0 and all the tariff and other uncertainty he brings.
The Age runs with the same race metaphor but gives the contestants a bit of a vehicular upgrade.
Can Labor's cash-filled pannier hold off a truck-driving Dutton as he chases them down on the road to the election?
There is a lot to unpack on the front page of the Financial Review.
This big budget has been transformed into a big shop and Chalmers and Albanese have stacked their trolley full.
While the shelves are full of big promises for tax cuts, energy rebates and HECS relief, the trolley carries a heavy weight: the AUKUS deal, Cyclone Alfred spending, a return to the deficit and a big, presidential baby.
Everyone remembers the Liberal Party's famous "back in black" celebration (and the associated coffee mug merchandise) when Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison prematurely announced a return to surplus, right?
When Chalmers is essentially offering the average voter a free cup of coffee a week with his tax cut, you can see why it was hard for The Australian to resist doing up a new mug to "celebrate" a return to deficit.
The Coalition's surplus never came to pass but something tells us Chalmers' prediction of a deficit won't be so far wide of the mark.
If The West Australian's Federal Budget 2025 Wrapped edition proves even a fraction as popular as Spotify's original then the future of newspapers is looking very rosy indeed.
But something tells us photoshopping the treasurer's head onto the cover of Nirvana's famous Nevermind album might not have readers sprinting to pick up a copy.
It's "Jim Pickings" as Chalmers reaches into his pockets pulls out – a few washers, some spare coins and a bottle cap.
It looks like The Daily Telegraph has not been blown away by the treasurer's tax cut promise.
The Advertiser has eschewed the coffee metaphor and instead compared the tax cut to a six-nugget McHappy meal.
Bonus points for describing a $14,615-a-week pay rise for Adelaide Zoo's pandas as bamboozling.
The coffee comparison's back in Queensland's The Courier-Mail but there's not a pun in sight to describe "Jim's $17bn vote grab".
Just when we were starting to worry the nation's sub-editors had overcome their penchant for a pun, the Herald Sun comes roaring back.
We're treated to "coffee shot", "sweetener" and "treating us like mugs" all on the same page.
The treasurer and prime minister are betting big on the front page of the Mercury, "betting the house" on a "roll of the dice" to win votes.
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