Australia politics news LIVE: Anger as prominent Yes advocate and comedian Adam Hills defends Voice spitter with four outrageous words

Skyrocketing prices for Australia’s commodity exports and robust job growth have helped the federal government achieve a record $22.1 billion surplus.

The surplus for the 2022/2023 financial year marks the first time in fifteen years that the government has collected more revenue than it has spent.

The last surplus was achieved under John Howard’s coalition government in 2007/2008 – not long before the global financial crisis.

Labor will celebrate a surplus well above the scant $4.3 billion forecast in the May budget.

It also marks a dramatic improvement over the $77.9 billion deficit projected in the Coalition’s final budget last year.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said a stronger budget would serve as a foundation for “everything we want to do for our people and our society.”

“The $100 billion turnaround we achieved in our first year in office is the largest nominal budget improvement in Australian history.”

Comedian Adam Hills has defended the university professor who was caught on camera spitting at a man during a Voice Yes meeting.

Shocking footage went viral on Thursday showing Australian National University emeritus professor Denise Ferris spitting at activist Andrew Thaler at an event in Cooma, south-east NSW.

Now Hills, an outspoken supporter of Yes, has defended the move with four shocking words: ‘talk s**t, get spit’.

Hills further made it clear that he believes neither side exhibited particularly admirable behavior.

‘I don’t think you should spit at anyone else. “I don’t think you should call someone a ‘dumb m**e’ either,” he said.

His apparent defense of the actions Professor Ferris took led to a wave of criticism from his followers, who encouraged him to rise above the fighting.