On budget speculation, Malcolm Turnbull is right.
It's not unusual at this time of year, the prime minister says.
The difference this year is that most of the speculation is about its delivery date and not its likely content.
Budget day, along with a release date for the government's tax package and much-vaunted tax cuts, remains up in the air.
In a heated parliamentary question time on Wednesday, Labor leader Bill Shorten demanded to know whether budget day would be brought forward a week from its scheduled date of May 10 - a move that would allow the government to clear the decks for an early election - and what happened to those tax cuts.
Mr Turnbull scoffed at his opponent's demand, reminding him the budget was still eight weeks away.
"The contents of the budget and tax changes contained therein will be delivered on budget night, in the normal way," he said.
Just a few months ago, Treasurer Scott Morrison was "quite passionate" about delivering tax cuts to address bracket creep - which threatens to push middle-income earners into a higher tax bracket just through wage inflation.
The need appears less immediate.
"It's important to reduce the tax burden on Australians, and we will do that wherever we can," the treasurer told parliament on Wednesday.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said Mr Morrison had failed every test he had set himself.
"It is quite clear that Scott Morrison should hand back the keys to the Treasury portfolio because the Australian people now know, six months in, he is just not good enough for the job," Mr Bowen told reporters in Canberra.
During a censure motion, opposition finance spokesman Tony Burke said whatever Mr Turnbull was passionate about - such as bracket creep, the republic, gay marriage or climate change - was "doomed".
Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm said the government knows income tax cuts are needed but lacks the courage of its convictions.
"It is bizarre, the economic narrative that we were promised is missing in action," he said.
Just as Mr Morrison is coming to the final stages of putting his first budget together, the nation's biggest miner has warned not to rely on last week's surge in the iron ore price to fuel government revenues.
BHP Billiton chief executive Andrew Mackenzie told a Melbourne conference there was no shortage of iron ore and new supplies were being added all the time.
That means growing supply would eventually exceed growth in demand.
"Ultimately, we think the excess of supply will drive prices lower from where they are currently," he said.
Last week the iron ore price saw its biggest one-day gain, breaching $US60 per tonne compared to the government's forecast made in December of just US$39.
The price has since slipped towards $US50.
