Budget night is supposed to be one ofthenights in Parliament. Excitement. Tension. Spectacle. Thursday night had none of these.

The public galleries were full of people who had supposedly come to listen as our nation's leader presented 31 closely typed pages of budget. He seemed unable to hold his audience's attention. Instead, people chatted amongst themselves or simply observed MPs doing what they do best. Nothing.

Even journalists appeared to be something less than riveted by the Prime Minister's delivery as they wandered in and out of the press gallery. Most had read copies of the budget a couple of hours before and were only there in case somebody dropped dead before the budget reading was finished or some other exciting thing happened. It didn't.

Salient was one of the few news services which missed out an early copy of the budget. Despite assurances that there was no formal procedure to get a copy, Salient was left off someone's bureaucratic list. Eventually, an unbound copy was made available.