Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I seek leave to move amendments No 8, 10 and 11 circulated in my name.

Leave granted.

These amendments relate to the public release of costings, responses and submissions. Schedule 1, item 16 sections 64L and 64L(a) of the current bill provide that requests for costings made to the PBO during the caretaker period and before polling day—and the costings themselves—must be publicly released as soon as practicable. I move to omit these sections and to substitute new sections 64L, 64L(a) and 64L(b).

The new section 64L provides that costing requests and the costings themselves can only be released by the PBO if it is requested to do so by the relevant senator or member or by an authorised member of a parliamentary party. The new section 64L(a) provides that responses to other non-costing requests can only be released by the Parliamentary Budget Office if it is requested to do so by the relevant senator or member. The new section 64L(b) provides that the Parliamentary Budget Officer must publicly release both requests by parliamentary committees and its standard reports done in performance of its functions.

These amendments clarify what information can be publicly released by the PBO in the normal course of its duties and what information cannot be released without the explicit direction of the relevant member or senator. The key point is that, whatever the policy might be, it is the copyright of the member that submits it to the Parliamentary Budget Office. That member owns the policy initiative; therefore, if it is sent to the Parliamentary Budget Office, the Parliamentary Budget Office does not have automatic authority to release the policy or its assumptions.

Just as the Parliamentary Budget Office has to treat information provided by a department secretly and cannot release information provided by a department without the express approval of the department, the bill as it stands says that the Parliamentary Budget Office can release whatever it wants that belongs to member of parliament. That is a great idea that you are guys are supporting again—just release that information without the approval of the person who is the author of the policy initiative! We will wait and see how this all closes out. What I am doing is allowing the PBO to get on with its job of publishing independent analysis of the budget cycle while at the same time ensuring that information belonging to an MP is treated as confidential.

With these amendments I am also moving that PBO employers are required to observe requests for confidentiality relating to the budget or for policy costings outside the caretaker period. So what I am saying is that these confidentiality provisions of the bill as it stands do not relate to policy costing requests made during the caretaker period. This section is made redundant by the new 64L and 64L(a), and I move that 64V be omitted.

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