Having floated a whole host of scary spending cuts and an increase in tax, the government now seems to be trying to find the suitable middle point to retreat to on many of them, and working out which ones to abandon entirely. Either way the PM and Treasurer totally dominated coverage over the last seven days, with Tony Abbott clicking over the 60,000 comments mark on social media while Joe Hockey led radio coverage and was only a couple of hundred mentions behind across all news media. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann jumped into the top five as he hit the interview trail defending the “budget emergency”. The polls suggest a big backlash for the government, but how permanent that will be beyond the budget remains to be seen.

Former NSW Police Minister Mike Gallacher was the latest Liberal to get caught up in ICAC allegations, with claims that he was involved in laundering of property developer donations, which are banned in NSW. What is happening at ICAC keeps threatening to become a widespread serious conversation about how politics is funded in Australia, but whether anyone outside political and media circles is paying enough attention for both major parties not to just ride it out is another question. The one thing for sure is that the general vibe about politicians and how politics is conducted has probably sunk to new, very deep lows from an already subterranean point.

Crikey Political Index: May 1-7

Almost identical figures to last week for the top two, with Mathias Cormann of the effortless Arnie Schwarzenegger impressions the only new entrant. We just hope the well-known climate sceptic meets the head of the Climate Institute someday soon, so he can ask “are you John Connor?”

Talkback Top Five

The biggest number of the year for Tony Abbott in the twittersphere, with quite a number of his critics claiming to be Liberal voters — are there really Liberal voters on Twitter apart from Chris Kenny?

Social Media Top Five

The story about James Packer’s fight with David Gyngell has received a ridiculously large amount of coverage, partly because of the pictures, but even without them it probably would have been big. Schadenfreude at its most virulent.

Comparison of Media Mentions