Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

It is well known that, when the Treasury does its modelling and its forecasts, it takes a conservative approach. It makes assumptions which could be accused of being conservative. I know that it has made assumptions, in arriving at the $9 billion figure, based on certain profit projections and certain terms of trade projections. I think the Secretary of the Treasury was making the point that those projections are, in his mind, conservative—as is prudent and appropriate.

I know the shadow Treasurer has some interest in this. He last year accused the Treasury of not being conservative enough—of being overly optimistic. Of course those projections turned out to be too pessimistic. This year he has accused the Treasury of being too pessimistic whereas last year he accused it of being too optimistic. He now accuses it of being too pessimistic. I think he and I would agree that forecasting is, by its very nature, not always an exact science, but this is the Treasury’s best estimate based on the best information it had at hand, with conservative assumptions built into that. I would much prefer the Treasury to be conservative in its forecasts than to be overly optimistic.

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