The lights burned most of the night in Barton and West Deakin.
Canberra’s third biggest industry was at work. Ralph Willis had just delivered the Budget and industry groups (at least the active ones) had to have all the pertinent bits circulated through their industry first thing next morning.
The executive directors and their minions thumbed through the voluminous Budget papers members getting an overview and extracting the detail of what might affect their industry.
It is a hard slog. It is easy to miss something.
At 1pm that day about 400 journalists attended a lock up in Parliament House. For six and a half hours before Mr Willis gets to his feet, they, too, slogged through the papers. The journalists were given _ wait for it _ 1.2 tonnes of paper. Some journalists are the comentators, the overview writers and those who concentrate on the new big-ticket items. Others are specialist writers: science, education, sport, health, arts, defence, law and so on. The things they write about (arguably the more important elements to the Budget which appear well back in the newspaper) are usually scattered in bits all over the Budget papers.
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