The opposition has trained its guns on Joe Hockey on the first day of resumed parliamentary sittings, casting the Treasurer as the government's weakest link and his budget as dead in the water.
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The aggressive move came as the embattled Treasurer moved to beef up his sales pitch, hiring an acclaimed author to write his speeches and improve his communciations team.
With Labor convinced it has the government in trouble, it directed every question to Mr Hockey, buttressed by backbench taunts suggesting he was sweating too much, was losing the confidence of his own backbench and was incapable of understanding the hardships of life for low-income Australians.
With the pressure mounting over stalled budget items, and concerns over the government's sales job, Mr Hockey has hired author David Hunt as his speechwriter.
"I was really impressed with Girt, he's obviously a brilliant writer. He also has public service experience and I believe he will be a great person to work with," Mr Hockey told Fairfax Media.
Liberal colleagues concede Mr Hockey, who started out as the government's best parliamentary performer, has lost a degree of authority and confidence during the difficult post-budget period, during which Labor and the Greens have played hard-ball and the new independent-dominated Senate has flexed its muscles.
Hunt is the author of the bestselling book Girt, a humorous take on Australian history. He is also a public policy consultant.
But what he is not is an unquestioning supporter of Coalition policy. In fact, a quick trawl though his work on the social media site, Twitter, shows Hunt has been a trenchant critic of the government, issuing scathing critiques of its stance on asylum seekers, climate change, same-sex marriage and even Mr Hockey's first budget.
The day after the budget was released, Hunt tweeted "UNREAL SOLUTIONS. REAL LIES." with a Photoshopped image posted by actor and Labor supporter Rhys Muldoon.
That same day, he said "Commonwealth cuts to state health budgets will help end the blame game. Now we know exactly who to blame."
In November: 'John Howard preferred his "instinct" to scientific advice. Abbott's instinct is to kill off scientific advice" accompanied by an article about cuts to the CSIRO.
Hunt also labelled Australia's asylum seeker policy '#Australianshame', lamented a lack of progress on same-sex marriage, and criticised the Prime Minister for the lack of women in cabinet.
Despite this unfriendly commentary, the Treasurer seems to be fan of his work. In July, he congratulated Hunt on Girt via Twitter: 'well done David, "Girt" is a terrific read.' The author responded with a warm "Cheers Joe. Volume 2 proving to be a trickier bugger."
In a ferocious question time, Mr Hockey appeared to show signs of clear stress between questions, leaning forward and repeatedly re-reading briefing notes.
The government has shifted its rhetoric over the budget situation in recent days and now talks of the "budget mess" left by Labor, as opposed to the more extreme language used in the past in which the budget was said to be in crisis and facing an imminent emergency.
Yet key items remain no closer to resolution. Among them, the proposed $7 GP co-payment which has been the subject of discussions with independent senators, and proposed changes to higher education funding.
Earlier this month, Mr Hockey got himself into bother with remarks interpreted as suggesting the petrol excise increase which is also being blocked in the Senate was fair because poor people tend not to drive cars.
He later issued an apology.
The government is hoping to bring its mining tax repeal bill package back into the parliament as early as next week but is yet to secure a commitment of support from the crossbench.
When asked by Fairfax Media about Mr Hunt's previous positions on government policies, a spokesperson for the Treasurer said: "He is not being engaged for his policy advice, he is being engaged for his writing skills."
