Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The protocols to which Senator Cameron refers are government policy and what they are about is ensuring that the Parliamentary Budget Office can operate well and as the committee that the coalition was a member of anticipated that the Parliamentary Budget Office would operate. These protocols ensure that the officials cannot tell ministers or their officers about requests for information from parliamentarians or the responses provided if the request is requested to be treated confidentially. These protocols also prohibit ministers or their staff from asking officials to provide them with any information which would disclose the nature of a confidential request.

In other words, these protocols protect confidentiality in the period of confidentiality for the Charter of Budget Honesty. What that means is that Mr Hockey and Mr Robb have absolutely no excuse anymore to not be transparent with the Australian people about the true costs of their policies. Let us remember that out of their own mouths they have acknowledged that they have to find $70 billion worth of cuts over the forward estimates. That is like stopping the family tax benefit for three years and the age pension for two years. The reason that they do not want to use the Parliamentary Budget Office and they do not want to comply with Peter Costello's Charter of Budget Honesty is they do not want to tell people what they really want to do in government. They do not want to tell people what they are going to cut.

We saw it again today with questions about the defence budget. Mr Abbott, as we know, has previously beaten his chest about this and has said, yet again, that he is going to bring back all the funding for defence. What are you going to cut to fund it? Is it the pension? Is it the family tax benefit? Is it health funding? Is it schools funding? Is it child care? You will not front up to the Australian people. That is why you are avoiding the use of the Parliamentary Budget Office.