Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Transparent, costed policies are fundamental to trust, to honesty and to having a good public debate. The Parliamentary Budget Office was created in this spirit. It was created following a bipartisan parliamentary report agreed to by members from both sides of the House, including the member for Higgins, who is here in the chamber, and Senator Joyce. The coalition support for the Parliamentary Budget Office, however, did not extend beyond that bipartisan report. By the time that the Parliamentary Budget Office came to be considered by parliament it had become apparent that the coalition's costings hole was far bigger than had been thought at the time the report was written. The coalition then stepped back from their support for the Parliamentary Budget Office.

This is a pity for Australian politics in general. Australian politics has always depended on a robust opposition which presents alternative ideas for the governance of Australia. That is critical to the operation of our great democracy. The coalition's tepid attitude to the Parliamentary Budget Office and the increasing suggestions that they will not place their costings before it, is deeply concerning to me and I think to many Australians regardless of their political views. I often meet people in my electorate who are Liberal Party voters—who have voted for the Liberal Party all their life and intend to do so at the next election—but they still say to me, 'I wish they would be a bit clearer about what they want to do; I wish they would be a bit clearer about their policies.'

The Labor Party in government have put in place significant savings. Since the global financial crisis, all of our new spending has been offset by savings. We will now spend less than 24 per cent of GDP over the forward estimates—something not achieved since the 1980s. This $154 billion of savings over five budgets has not been easy to achieve. To take one example: when we said that the baby bonus would be reduced from $5,000 to $3,000 for second and subsequent children, the member for North Sydney compared it to the one-child policy. When we have made targeted saves, such as getting rid of the outdated dependent spouse tax offset—a measure that deterred secondary earners from working—we have been attacked by those opposite.

The opposition have, as a result of saying yes to every special interest but saying no to sensible revenue measures, got themselves into a substantial revenue crater. As a result, for example, of saying that they will repeal the price on carbon and repeal the minerals resource rent tax, they have a costings gap of around $70 billion. That is not my figure. Anyone who thinks that this figure is a Labor figure simply needs to go to the transcript of Joe Hockey, the member for North Sydney, on Sunrise on 12 August 2011. That is where the $70 billion figure comes from. Seventy billion dollars is equivalent to stopping Medicare for four years or stopping the pension for two years. It is a huge amount of money.

Where will the opposition get that from? We know a few things about what they will do. They have said they will get rid of the schoolkids bonus, a measure which is designed to help families with children at the times of the year when they have those education expenses. We know that they are going to scrap income tax cuts for around seven million Australians. Recently the member for North Sydney has tried to hide that. He carried out a doorstep with the Liberal candidate for Parramatta, who said that the benefit of the tax cuts would be $3 a week. But that is a figure that applies to a tiny fraction of those eligible. For the vast majority of Australian taxpayers, their benefit from these tax cuts—and the pain that they will endure if the coalition is to increase income taxes on seven million hardworking Australians—will be much bigger. Most receive at least $300 a year. Many part-time workers receive up to $600. The member for North Sydney was so embarrassed by that that he edited his own transcript to remove the reference to a $3 a week tax cut.

We know too that the Liberal Party would, if it were to attain office, establish a commission of audit. That is a well-worn Liberal tactic, used on attaining office by Premier Newman, Premier Baillieu, as he then was, and Premier O'Farrell. It is simply a way of failing to come clean with the Australian people about what you will do.

The opposition frequently say that they have had their policies costed. The member for Goldstein, Andrew Robb, will frequently say that he has policies in his desk drawer which have covers on them—it's great that they've designed those covers; I'm very happy about that!—and that they have been costed. But it is not clear by whom those policies have been costed. Have they been costed, as they were at the last federal election, by a team of dodgy accountants who were subsequently fined for saying that they had carried out an audit when in fact they had not? Have they been costed by a catering company such as the catering company that did costings for Scott Morrison on immigration? We know that the coalition have costed policies, but we also know that those policies are sitting in a desk drawer. You have to ask yourself: if these policies were so good for the Australian people, would they be sitting in the member for Goldstein's top drawer or would they be in the full glare of public scrutiny? I think Australian families know the answer.

We have some hints as to what the opposition would do from their statements on the goods and services tax. The opposition have said they are going to provide a larger share of GST to some states, which inevitably means they will have to provide a smaller share to others. So my colleagues in Tasmania and South Australia have raised concerns about the impact on their share of GST revenues if the opposition were to attain government.

We know also something about what the opposition might do as a result of two recent reports by Australia's two leading right-wing think tanks. The Institute of Public Affairs has put out a list, and Alan Moran of the IPA was quoted in the Australian on 16 March 2013 as saying:

Some items have been discussed with Coalition politicians, many of whom are in the agreement with the principles against which list has been developed.

Those cuts include cancelling the first stage of the NDIS and abolishing the FaHCSIA division implementing the NDIS; abolishing Fair Work Australia and Safe Work Australia; cutting the general research budget by 40 per cent; cutting all Commonwealth housing programs; cutting all foreign aid, excluding emergency aid; abolishing the agriculture, forestry and fisheries programs; and privatising the ABC. They sound like savage cuts to me, but according to Senator Wong they amount to only $23.5 billion, so they are less than half of what the opposition would have to make in order to fill its costings gap.

Similarly savage cuts have been put forward by the Centre for Independent Studies. The Centre for Independent Studies have a TARGET30 report, suggesting that Commonwealth, state and local government spending should not amount to more than 30 per cent of GDP. That means significant decreases in the tax share for the Commonwealth government. The report is honest enough to note that Australia is now the third-lowest spending country in the OECD. Thirty per cent would make us the lowest spending government in the OECD. How would the Centre for Independent Studies reduce our expenditure? They would do so by cutting back on health, education and welfare. The Centre for Independent Studies want insurance vouchers in our healthcare system rather than the world-beating Medicare system. They want cutbacks to compulsory superannuation. They want to abolish family tax benefit part B and they want to stop the Gonski reforms. These are significant cuts.

Meanwhile, you have the Leader of the Opposition, with his DLP tendencies, going about the place talking about what he will spend. He said at a Brookvale Oval function, for example, that he wants to redevelop Brookvale Oval at a cost of $70 million. No-one knows where this money will come from. I hope that the Parliamentary Budget Office can contribute to a more transparent and open costings debate in Australia. Australians deserve no less.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find it fascinating that a man who seeks to lecture the parliament regularly about evidence-based policy and having academic debate, and who is often fond of quoting Leon Lee on television programs—to the extent where some of his colleagues have Leon Lee bingo going on in their offices—would launch a savage attack on think tanks in Australia for having ideas and for discussing policy. Can you imagine people having different ideas to those of the Labor Party? I know we have a bill before the parliament this week which will talk about cutting down any debate in newspapers—exactly what the Labor Party like; the thought police—we now have the academic thought police over there. Here he is: the first person ever in Australian political history to be appointed to an opposition position from government. Can you imagine? They have made him an opposition waste-watch spokesman. Can you believe it? How embarrassing for the poor member for Fraser. He cannot get on the government front bench, so he is already on the opposition front bench from government. Now work that out.

It is a bit the same as trying to work out this motion. This motion is a bit of a joke being played by the Labor Party because if you look at the first point:

(1) notes that:

(a) a bipartisan parliamentary report recommended the creation of the Parliamentary Budget Office, which is now operational having passed Parliament …

That is true. Of course, it was policy announced by the member for Wentworth when he was the Leader of the Opposition in his budget reply speech in 2009. We did not hear that from the member for Fraser. We missed that on the way through his speech. It was actually the member for Wentworth's idea in the first place that we have a Parliamentary Budget Office, and so we do support a Parliamentary Budget Office. We support a Parliamentary Budget Office particularly because when each year you have a budget which says you are going to have a deficit—that is a word you guys in government are familiar with—which is a certain amount, but the final budget figures come out the deficit is far more than what was expected, we are looking for some independent costing numbers and analysis of the budget, because what we are seeing from the Labor government is nowhere near the true state of the Australian budget on a rolling basis

Therefore, we are suspicious of and sceptical about the Labor projections in their budget. We know they are politicised. We know that there is influence put on the Treasury to change figures, to ensure that the budget looks more rosy than it actually is, and we know that the best way to ensure we get updated figures is to wait for the PEFO statement prior to the election.

That takes me to point (2) of the member for Fraser's motion, which:

… calls on all parties to have their policies costed consistent with the Charter of Budget Honesty, and release them to the Australian people in enough time to have a well-informed debate.

That is an interesting point. So let us have a look at the Labor Party record on releasing of costings before the election campaigns.

In 2004, when Mr Latham was the leader of the Labor Party—do you remember Mr Latham? I remember Mr Latham. I loved watching Mr Latham. In fact, he wrote a very good essay about the Labor Party last week. I really enjoyed it and I think he was spot-on. It was an interesting analysis by Mr Latham. He does have some very interesting insights into those on the other side. When he was the leader of the Labor Party in 2004 the ALP released their costings on Thursday, 7 October 2004. When was the election in 2004? It was on 9 October—within 48 hours. That was what we needed! So much for calls on the parties to have their policies costed consistent with the Charter of Budget Honesty and release them to the Australian people in enough time for a well-informed debate! Okay, fair enough—that was 10 years ago, and it was Mr Latham who was the leader at that point. We can forgive them for that. They would have learnt their lesson. The member for Fraser says we need a proper debate about costings. So, in 2007 when they were likely to win the election—they were in front in the opinion polls all year in 2007; we remember it well—when do you think they released their policy costings for that election? It is one you would be familiar with.

An honourable member: Months in advance, surely?

Well, they released them on 23 November 2007. The election date for that election was 24 November—within 24 hours! They even bettered Mr Latham's record! The member for Griffith, who of course they knifed in the back not long after he became the Prime Minister, released them within 24 hours, to give the Australian public the proper time to have a well-informed debate!

If you think you are getting the smell of hypocrisy here, you would be right, because, in 2010, when they were actually even in government, when they had all the resources of government to prepare for the election campaign, when do you think they released their policy costings in that election campaign? On Friday, 20 August 2010. The election was 21 August 2010. So that was within 24 hours of the election, of people actually voting. The Labor Party and the member for Fraser think that is enough time to have a well-informed debate about policy costings.

This is absolute hypocrisy. This is from a government who put a mining tax in, and booked up $12 billion of expenditure based on a tax which has received $120 million in revenue. They booked up $12 billion of expenditure, based on $120 million of revenue. And we want to have a debate about policy costings! What an embarrassing thing for the Labor Party to do. It is the greatest own goal in the history of Australian politics.

Those on that side of parliament, who inherited a budget position of a $20 billion surplus in 2007, have turned that around to a $265 billion debt, with more to come, because we know that last week in parliament the Prime Minister and the Treasurer refused to rule out increasing the debt limit, and they want to have a debate about policy costings—with their record of releasing their policy costings within 24 hours of the election campaign!

We also heard the member for Fraser talk about the latest scare campaign which has been run in South Australia and Tasmania relating to the GST distribution. Let us step through what has happened here. The Treasurer and the minister for finance announced two years ago a review of the arrangements relating to GST distribution. That review has not been released yet. Mr Greiner, Mr Bracks and Mr Bruce Carter from South Australia—a well-connected Labor appointee—were on that review panel. We have not seen the final results of the Labor review. Yet somehow it is the opposition who have plans to change the GST distribution across the country—even though it has been ruled out that any state would be worse off. Even though it has been ruled out, they just keep saying it.

Jay Weatherill, the Premier of South Australia, desperate because his government is facing an absolute electoral annihilation next month, is out there today desperately trying to create another scare campaign. It has been ruled out, time in and time out—but it has not been ruled out by Penny Wong. We have not seen the Labor Party rule it out yet, yet on the other side they are making all sorts of accusations. Again, it is hypocrisy. You just cannot trust Labor. They are as trustworthy as a government which would tell you, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,' or, 'There's more chance of me playing full forward for the Western Bulldogs than rolling the member for Griffith.' Well, we saw how that worked out for the member for Griffith.

Finally, in the time left, I will make another point. This motion 'calls on all parties to have their policies costed consistent with the Charter of Budget Honesty', and we will do so. We will release them to the Australian people in enough time to have a well-informed debate. We have put well over 50 policies in to the Parliamentary Budget Office for analysis and costing. We are doing the detailed work. We have had an expenditure review committee, which I am part of, operating now for a couple of years, working through the budget and working through the Labor waste, the mismanagement, to find where we can improve the delivery of efficient services.

But a very important point which calls the lie on this motion has actually been made by the Parliamentary Budget Office itself at the recent estimates hearings. I refer to a media release from my good friend—now a new father—Senator Matthias Cormann, who says, 'PBO confirms election costings can't be finalised until after PEFO released.' So let us go past all this spin, all this attempt to create a false scare campaign like the GST distribution debate, which the member for Fraser referred to, and like the costings debate that they are trying to create. We know from independent analysis that they have $120 billion that they have not been able to fund. We know that the carbon tax is not going to collect what they thought it would. We know that the mining tax is not collecting what they thought it would. They should not be talking about costings. They are the most fiscally irresponsible government in Australian political history, and the master of European economics over there knows it.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House this morning is whether the September 2013 election should be contested around policy rather than personality, whether it is a contest around facts or fantasy and whether it is a contest around ideas or cant. We have heard a lot of cant in the debate this morning. In fact, you know it is Monday morning when the member for Mayo is going off like a Catherine wheel. There is more ecstasy over there than in an inner-city dance party. But the fact is that there is an important issue at stake here—that is, should the people of Australia, when they cast their ballots in September 2013, have all the facts before them about the contesting ideas, the contesting policies, of the two main parties that go into this election?

We know that oppositions are sometimes at a disadvantage when it comes to having their election policies costed. They do not have the same opportunities available as a government would to ensure that, from budget to budget, their policies are costed and scrutinised in the normal way that any government would. Oppositions are at a disadvantage. So, to ensure that we have a fair contest at the election, this government has put in place the Parliamentary Budget Office. The purpose of the Parliamentary Budget Office is to ensure that opposition parties, Independents, crossbenchers and minor parties have available to them expert, independent assistance in costing their policies so that, when there is an election, there is the capacity for the Australian people to look at and judge the competing policy prescriptions of both parties, based on independent costings.

Of course, there is some history in this country about election contests being fought out on great claims about the costings and savings that are available to opposition parties which are contesting the election, only to find, in the course of the campaign or after the campaign, that those costings are nothing more than a house of cards. In the 2010 election, for example, the opposition was making great claims about the savings that they had been able to find and that their policies had been fully costed and were able to be delivered, only for it to be discovered days after the election that there was an $11 billion hole in their costings. The so-called independent auditors that they had go over their costs have subsequently been significantly discredited.

There is a history in this country of oppositions not being forthcoming and fully frank with the electorate when it comes to having their policies fully costed. That is why we have set up the Parliamentary Budget Office to ensure that we do not do that.

The opposition has made great noise over the last couple of months about the importance of transparency in costings. We have had the member for North Sydney tell the Australian people that if the coalition are elected to office then he will be mandating a report on structural deficits—something that I actually welcome. I think that would be a welcome addition to the annual reporting of our national finances. They want to ensure that we have structural deficit reports but are not willing to use the facilities of the Parliamentary Budget Office and come clean with the costings that lie behind their policies.

We know there is good reason for that. We know that there is a $70 billion black hole within their election costings, on their own admission. And we see over the last 24 hours that one of the think tanks which is advising the Liberal Party has come up with a range of proposed savings, including cancelling the NDIS; abolishing Fair Work Australia and Safe Work Australia; cutting the general research budget by 40 per cent; cutting the Commonwealth housing program; cutting foreign aid; excluding emergency aid; and abolishing all agricultural, forestry and fishery programs. These are just a range of the savings. If these are the propositions that are being put by the opposition in the lead-up to the budget, they should come clean. They have told us that all of their policies are fully costed and ready to go; well, come clean with the costings.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion makes reference to parties presenting properly costed policies and talks about the Australian people having a well-informed debate. Talk about utter bald-faced hypocrisy—how can the member for Fraser come in here with a motion that talks about properly costed policies when he is part of a government that simply cannot get any costings right?

Just last financial year, this Labor government predicted a deficit of $22.6 billion, but they were not even within a bull's roar of it. The end result was $43.7 billion—almost double what was forecast. Take their costings on the mining tax: it simply made this government a complete and utter laughing stock. Let's not forget the promise after promise after promise about returning the budget to surplus—another complete costings farce.

On policies, all Australians remember the government's policy before the last election, and that was: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' But instead the good member that proposes this motion voted with the rest of this government to inflict the world's largest carbon tax upon our nation. So how can the Australian public have a well-informed debate about policies, when the track record of this government simply shows they cannot be trusted? It shows the public cannot believe a single word that they say.

Nine months into Labor's carbon tax, just look at the damage this toxic tax is wreaking through the economy. Only a few days ago, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission reported that there were 10,632 company collapses in the last 12 months. That is an average of 886 a month. In fact, under Labor's carbon tax the number of firms being placed into administration under distress is actually 12 per cent higher than what was experienced during the global financial crisis—12 per cent higher.

Look at some of the comments from some industry specialists. Tod Gammel, a partner with HLB Mann Judd, likened the carbon tax to pulling a leg from underneath a chair. He said:

The companies which have exposure to energy and other factors which are affected by the carbon tax in a significant way, the carbon tax and the costs related to it are having a significant impact on the ability of these companies to continue.

ACCI chief economist Greg Evans said:

Rapidly escalating energy prices caused by the carbon tax and other green programs are taking their toll on many Australian businesses. In energy reliant industries it is already showing up in job losses, investment and in the worst cases business closures.

AMP Capital chief economist Dr Shane Oliver said:

It defies logic to adopt a policy which even the Treasury acknowledges will lower our standard of living and be harmful to national productivity. The carbon tax is clearly having its toll.

The evidence is in. Labor's carbon tax has resulted in a record number of firms going to the wall with thousands of employees being laid off and companies forced to close factories that have stood for generations. And the damage goes on. The Treasurer has been crying about a massive hit to revenue, but what do you expect when you smash Australian businesses with the world's highest carbon tax? This government simply does not get it. We have seen the Treasury figures released that show that the national budget fell a further $4.6 billion into deficit in the first four weeks of 2013. That is over $1 billion a week. It is $164 million a day or $6,845,000 an hour.

We all want an informed debate, the one that Labor deceptively denied the public at the last election. There are two crystal clear alternatives at this next election. If the coalition is elected we will abolish the carbon tax. It will be our first order of business. The alternative, a vote for Labor, is a continuation of the damage that the carbon tax is doing. But not only that, under Labor the carbon tax continues— (Time expired)

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Fraser in bringing this important notice of motion to the attention of the House. I am a little disappointed that those opposite, particularly after my good friend Craig Kelly's speech, are not standing up and supporting this. If you think that all cards should be put on the table, if that is what the submission is to this House, I actually agree. We do want to see all cards put on the table. We want to see what the spending requirements are, how people are going to make their pledges as we go forward to the next election and how they are going to be costed and delivered into reality in this place. Therefore I think the member for Fraser has done well in bringing this motion to us for our attention.

The Parliamentary Budget Office is a relatively new organisation which is providing independent and non-partisan analysis throughout the budget cycle of fiscal policy and also the financial implications of all proposals. As we move to the election, those opposite should take note that this is something that all parties, government and opposition, should be required to use in order to have their policies properly costed as well as assessed for the impact they will have on fiscal management. So far the Parliamentary Budget Office has performed exceptionally well in terms of its post-budget reports on election commitments of the parties, drawing attention to their impact on the budget's bottom line. So people cannot come in here and trash the Parliamentary Budget Office and talk about the carbon tax and the minerals resource rent tax as a justification for why they should not have some independent assessment of policies that parties are putting forward for government in the next term. It is just an inconsistency. The idea of having an independent assessor looking at spending and tax policies and providing a post-budget audit is something that ensures transparency and fiscal responsibility of political parties as election time comes around.

This should be something which is seen to be good for our democracy. Gone are the days when people could pork-barrel and make promises which were unsustainable and which they could not keep. Clearly, things will arise from time to time as to why things ought to be taken off the table, but people should be held to account. You cannot do what the Liberals and the Nationals did last election and come out and say, 'We're not going to use the Parliamentary Budget Office because we do not trust them. We think they're compromised public servants.' The ones who were dealing with the Treasury in those days had a bloke called Godwin Grech, their trusted insider in Treasury who was giving them advice, and look where it got them.

Look what they did instead: they opted for appointing their own auditor. That is certainly different from having a parliamentary budget office. Normally auditors have to confine themselves to operating under professional standards, but the auditor they secured was found to breach the professional standards of accounting in preparing the audit. That is what they relied on and then we discovered they had an $11 billion black hole, which was pretty unsettling. And had they been successful in winning government, they would have been struggling to find a cure for that black hole.

If you look at what has occurred recently—and I know there is some difference between the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer on this—you see that the Leader of the Opposition is saying, 'We're going to maintain all those compensations which flowed out of a carbon tax; we're going to maintain tripling the tax-free threshold'—but that is not the position of the opposition Treasurer. If that is correct, even the shadow Treasurer says that there is now a $70 billion black hole that is going to have to be filled. With due respect to Joe on this, he says, 'We're going to have to slash and burn to find savings to fix the $70 billion black hole.' We are indebted to him for being honest about that, but you cannot front up and do what they did last time, and simply thumb their noses at the democratic processes in this place, and say, simply, 'Trust us because we'll get it right.' Last time they did not; they were $11 billion short.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I follow the member for Fowler in this very important debate about the Parliamentary Budget Office, I would like to acknowledge, while she is in the room, the member for Gellibrand's great work in providing funding for Ungarie when, last year, that little village had a devastating flood go through it. People in that particular place waited and waited for the state to give it the necessary tick-off—and they are still waiting. Out of the goodness of her heart, the member for Gellibrand saw that there was a need, and she provided absolutely vital funding for it. I very much appreciated it and I very much appreciated her efforts in helping the Riverina flood victims after that particular devastation. Labor has been very good when we have had natural disasters. So I acknowledge that. But I also acknowledge the fact that, with this particular debate, Labor has not been very good—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You cannot get all the goodness out of me, because Labor has not been very good for the business community. I know the member for Hughes has pointed out the fact that the dreaded carbon tax is contributing to a record number of firms going to the wall, going broke, with thousands of employees being laid off. Labor always says it is there for the workers, but unfortunately, with the carbon tax and the clean energy legislation, factories which have stood for generations are closing, soaring energy bills are hurting households and company executives and corporate rescue doctors are trying to save ailing firms. But this is about the Parliamentary Budget Office and accountability.

If ever there was a sign that a government is not accountable, it is this particular Labor government. We have seen this government borrow more money in its five years than every other previous government from federation through to 2007 borrowed, which is a disgrace. It is important that the Australian public has access to all parties' positions on different matters at election time and that the parties have had adequate resources made available to ensure they receive independent advice while formulating these, and the creation of the Parliamentary Budget Office has allowed for this. The establishment of the office in Australia has been a key element of coalition policy for a number of years, and when we introduced the legislation in 2011 the government followed suit a couple of days later.

The coalition has called for the establishment of a PBO from as early as 2009, and in June 2010 the Leader of the Opposition renewed this call. When the opposition called for a PBO in 2009 it was envisaged it would be modelled on the United States Congressional Budget Office, an office which does not provide policy recommendations—rather, it provides independent analysis of the revenue and spending implication of policy proposals.

We have seen Labor in recent weeks—even though we are not in an election campaign—spending or promising money like drunken sailors. With all due respect to drunken sailors, I do not think even they would be as frivolous with their money as this government have been with their promises to the Australian people—promises they know they will never have to keep. All we get from that side is leadership speculation and a dysfunctional, shambolic government.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

I hear the member for Moreton calling out. He should have been here earlier when I was praising the member for Gellibrand, who did a good job in her former portfolio. But Labor have not done a good job in any portfolio area—and certainly not in defence, where they have cut $5½ billion out of this vitally important portfolio area, and certainly not for small businesses. Somebody asked me the other day what the definition of a small business is. I replied, 'It was a medium business when Labor came to office in 2007 and now it is a small business because of the cutbacks they have made and the harshness of the carbon tax'—helped by the member for Lyne to be brought in.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes; 'Hear, hear'. He sided with you to bring in the carbon tax, which has had such deleterious effect on Australians all over the country.

This is an extremely important debate, because the call for updated information in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook will not affect the cost of most policies and therefore the release of this document should not delay the release on policy, and that is where we differ. The Parliamentary Budget Office at the Senate estimates hearing on 11 February this year confirmed that they are unable to accurately finalise the costing of election policies until after the release of the PEFO, published by the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Finance. It will be the PEFO, which is the final set of budget numbers, by which the coalition will measure and cost our policies ahead of this year's federal election. But let me tell you that after 14 September, if we are lucky enough to be elected by the Australian people, we will be accountable, our policies will be costed and we will get a budget surplus.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also want to add my voice to this debate on this very important issue. Making sure that there can be provided to the public, covered in the media and part of any election debate that we have, a sensible discussion about the costs of various alternative policies is really important. The establishment of the Parliamentary Budget Office, enabling, particularly, the opposition and minor parties to be able to get their policies costed and to able to give the public confidence that the costings that are attached to those announcements are sound, could not be more important for the future of the country. But, unfortunately, the debate—as we have seen from some of the contributions already—has got to such a level that people no longer think that obtaining proper information and being able to have that reported to the public is something that we should even care about for the elections. I do not think there could be anything further from the truth. We need to make sure that proper information is available.

The reason I feel particularly passionate about this—and I know that members on our side have talked about the last election—is that I remember extremely clearly as the Minister for Health that just a number of days before the election the then opposition, seeking to be the government, had not released the costings of any of their policies. We were in the situation where we were close to media and advertising blackouts. We were literally days from the election. I think I was at a community chef facility in my electorate in Altona—a facility that makes meals on wheels for people; something funded as a regional project which has been very successful—and suddenly rather more people than you would expect to be at the Altona community chef facility turned up because the costings had just been announced by the opposition. They were audited but, as we now know, it was done by a very small firm which was professionally reprimanded for the work that it did having really accepted all of the assumptions—although many of them were flawed—that the Liberal Party had included in the work that they asked to be audited. I particularly remember it because these proposals included a quite breathtaking submission about what the PBS could cost in the view of the Liberal Party. There was no basis, however, for those figures being included. There was no detailed work done and no legitimate academic discussion, which of course, with a complex policy like the PBS, you might have. There was just an assertion that a billion dollars could be saved, where the only possible way of finding that saving would have been to increase copayments for ordinary consumers.

If in the election a party wants to come and say that is what they will do, the public should be able to then say, 'I actually don't want to pay more for my medicines,' or 'Yes, I agree that is worth it if it means we will do something else,' and have a proper debate. In fact, the media did not particularly run this issue. They said, 'The coalition says this and the government says that.' There was no assessment given of whether these were credible financial assessments or assumptions to make.

The Parliamentary Budget Office will now enable those sorts of last-minute sweeping and dramatic changes to be assessed and will provide to the public an independent view of whether those figures actually add up or not. You could not think of a more important thing that the public should be able to know. If we see the Liberal Party running away from having their policies costed—as it sounds as if they are going to, from the contributions that have been made—we will know that the same shonky approach that they took last time is going to be taken again.

I particularly want to use the example of health, because it has a budget of more than $60 billion. It is an area where there are always going to be financial issues that people want to talk about. These issues very much affect the community and people should be entitled to know. I make this point because, five years ago when our government was first elected, I would have thought—I have not counted; it is a guess—that there would have been about 10 dedicated health journalists in the press gallery, and now, as we speak today, there is one, and that person is not dedicated to health; they do health amongst other things. So how can we rely on the media to be able to properly pick apart assessments that are made by competing parties? We need budget experts. This office will have them. They have all the protection that means that the information will not be released early. The policies of the opposition should be costed by this new office. (Time expired)

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great to be here with you in the chair, Mr Deputy Speaker Cheeseman. I rise to speak on the motion moved by Dr Andrew Leigh—the Young Economist of the year in 2011—about bipartisan support for the Parliamentary Budget Office. I note that the member for Lyons is in the chamber as well, and I thank him for his contribution on this important checkpoint for democracy. Like the previous speaker, the former Attorney-General, I well remember the last election and that incredible $11 billion black hole. We had the incredible situation where the accounting firm faced the legal equivalent of being struck off, basically: they were professionally reprimanded for the work that they did at the last minute, signing off on the dodgy figures delivered by the coalition before the last election.

Obviously we need to have an independent office that all sides of parliament can trust and that the Australian people can trust. As the current costing process shows, the opposition is out there crazily offering everything. It is not just the leaders; out in the electorates, the promises that are being made are incredible. We need to have them properly costed. I commend the member for Warringah for committing resolutely to $70 billion in cuts to services if elected. To put that in context: as the member for Gellibrand said, the health budget is $60 billion. So you are basically saying to health: 'We will have no health delivered for a year, and then there will be another $10 billion.' That is the sort of black hole that has to be cut.

That $70 billion black hole is an incredible black hole. Coming from Queensland, I have seen what happens when a government turns up and says, supposedly with a mandate, 'We are going to cut.' I come from Queensland, where nearly 15,000 jobs have been cut from the Public Service, and we have seen all of the accompanying damage caused to people when such front-line services are attacked. Let's put that $70 billion in context: it is the equivalent of cutting the age pension for three years. Mr Abbott has not backed away from it in any way, shape or form. That is why we need to have his costings put through the Parliamentary Budget Office: so that there can be a proper debate amongst all of the parties about properly costed policies, so that we can look at the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook and use that prism to determine whether their figures are dodgy or not, because we do not need a repeat of what happened in 2010.

We need Mr Abbott to say what he will do. He is committed to cutting the schoolkids bonus. He is committed to cutting anything associated with the mining tax, a mining tax that we know, and all Australia knows, is the appropriate price on our minerals. They can only be dug up once. It is a tax-collecting mechanism which will give benefits to the Australian community for the next 30, 40, 50 years.

The member for Goldstein said, on 18 August 2011:

The $70 billion is an indicative figure of the challenge we’ve got … if we start to impose some discipline we should be able to stop spending in the order of $70 billion …

Well, heaven help the people out there involved in delivering Commonwealth services. Heaven help the 20,000 public servants who are lined up by the opposition to sack, the 20,000 public servants who are out there doing the right thing by the Australian people, delivering services that are going to be in the crosshairs under the coalition if, heaven forbid, they get over the line on September 14.

Coming from Queensland, I have seen what happens. I have been looking for the press releases from federal Liberal and National party members of parliament from Queensland saying anything positive about or even criticising Premier Newman for the cuts that he has made. I know the member for Forde is reluctant to let things go through or slip past him. I have seen him on many occasions. But I cannot find on his web page any criticism of Premier Newman and what he has done to our electorates. The reality is that, if Mr Abbott comes in, trying to fill this $70 billion black hole, the people of Queensland and the people of Australia will suffer.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to follow my esteemed colleague from Moreton, and to speak on the member for Fraser's motion on policy costings. The member for Moreton has spent a good deal of his contribution to this debate touching on the apparent $11 billion black hole in the coalition's costings for the last federal budget. If it were there, I would say it pales into insignificance compared to what we have seen this government achieve over the past three years, let alone compared to the past five years.

We have seen over the past five years this government rack up some $147 billion plus in deficits, and I think it is a tad hypocritical for the government to be lecturing us on policy costings when they have access to the full resources of Treasury yet they still cannot get their figures right year in, year out. Just for a bit of edification: the total government call on present and future taxpayers for the year finished was nearly 26 per cent of GDP. This was higher than in any year of the previous coalition government. The average over the term of the coalition government, over the 10 or 11 years, was some 23.4 per cent.

So I think we need to reflect on the facts of this debate. The facts are that the coalition, for 10 years of government, demonstrated good fiscal rectitude in ensuring that the Commonwealth's finances were managed in a consistent and well-considered manner for the benefit of all Australians. We have seen in the past five years of this government's effort that it has just gone on a spending spree with no consideration for the fact that, at some point in the future, this debt—now, in gross terms, some $263 billion—will need to be repaid. In looking at this motion by the member for Fraser, I think the government first needs to take a leaf out of its own book and get its own budget and policy costings in order. It is only the coalition which has a demonstrated track record of being able to actually achieve that.

Debate adjourned.