Last week, Treasury was partisan, couldn’t understand Coalition policies and was no better than a mid-tier accounting firm.
Today the opposition is very happy with Treasury, but just has some “differences of opinion” with it on costings. Just some minor disagreements over some trivial issues between good friends, discussed in an atmosphere of respect.
And anyway, as Mr Abbott, the man who remains more likely to become prime minister shortly said this morning, economic competence isn’t about things like costings.
That line was too much even for my, I hope highly-developed, capacity to accept political hypocrisy. We all know Tony Abbott is an economic lightweight, but is there any need to confirm it with comments like that?
So for those who came in late, here’s the story so far: the Liberals thought it would be a great lark when they were in government to establish a process called the Charter of Budget Honesty that would trap oppositions into being forced to either be humiliated when Treasury found flaws in their pre-election costings, or dodging the process and looking like they had something to hide.
Like most parties when new in government, they didn’t think about the possibility that they might not be in government one day.
Come their turn, they opted to look like they had something to hide. Which, it turns out, they did.
And thus Peter Costello is presumably having an extended laugh today at the expense of Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey as their convoluted efforts to avoid the Charter trap have made things a whole lot worse in the eyes of the three voters that now matter, the rural independents.
For all the talk of a $7-11 billion black hole, it pays to keep a sense of perspective. Some of the “disagreements” are fair enough. The Coalition was not able, given its resources and lack of access to the Public Service, to accurately cost its expansion of education tax refund. And it was caught out by the structuring of tax payments between financial years between 2012-13 and 2013-14, which notionally made its PPL scheme more expensive. As I’ve said repeatedly, there are some things you just can’t know when in opposition.
That’s not to say that if Labor had made the same errors in opposition they wouldn’t have been pilloried by the Coalition and the right-wing media, but that’s just ordinary double standards. I can’t imagine the media letting Labor get away with saying 95% of its costings were right, which the Coalition used in its own defence last night. Hell, a 2.7% complaint rate for BER projects has been the basis for an extended campaign about the “incompetence” of Labor.
But some other “disagreements” are more serious. The $1 billion costing of savings to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme — the best savings policy the Coalition came up with — was negated because the government had already factored in exactly the savings claimed by the Coalition. The costing of the Coalition’s employment policy actually broke Charter of Budget Honesty rules by assuming second round job creation effects.
That was worth nearly $1 billion over four years. And the Conservative Bias Allowance adjustment looks more than ever like a fiddle. Treasury and Finance’s comment “the Departments’ best estimate of a prudent Conservative Bias Allowance remains that published in the 2010 PEFO” suggests that it clearly isn’t regarded as prudent. Moreover, if that saving boosted the Coalition bottom line by $2.5 billion, it could do the same to Labor’s, taking Labor’s fiscal impact well ahead of the Coalition’s.
The Coalition insists it has worked hard on its savings and it will produce a better fiscal outcome than Labor. And there is some evidence to support that. But all that is obscured in the Coalition’s utter hypocrisy about the Charter of Budget Honesty and its fear of legitimate scrutiny. Politicians can’t just agree to disagree with Treasury on fundamental fiscal matters, not unless they want to to sit down with their staffers and write the Budget each year themselves.
Tony Windsor is right to be concerned about what he’s learnt from Treasury and Finance.
Well pit but I still believe the independents will side with whoever offers them the most pork.
I’m sooooo confused. Tony Abbott has a BEc from the University of Sydney, Andrew Robb has honours in Economics and Joe has neither. So when you see the three guys standing on the podium arguing economics Abbot is the one who is classified as lightweight. Abbott seems lightweight on most things he does.
Despite: reluctance to give costings to Treasury; subsequent shakey figures; a phone call from Satan; bullying; ridicule; being despised by their ex-National Party colleagues; Abbott not wanting high speed fibre national broad band publically built & owned – still my gut says that the 3 independents will back Abbott. I hope I am wrong! Maybe I am saying this as a psychological way to cope if it actually happens.
This matter, and the developing scandal about how Horwath’s was used to create a deceptive document, will have a bigger impact than Keane allows.
While I know that the Coalition are favourites still with the bookies and the commentators if you look at how the parties have conducted themselves post-election then it is clear that Labor is out-gunning the Coalition. Labor has appeared suitably chastened (unlike the triumphalist Liberals) and has worked methodically to put together an alliance. Unlike the Liberals they have made no significant missteps and are looking far more reliable as a three year long partner – a critical independent concern.
Read the piece by Kate Legge in the Australian today and you will see why Oakeshott has every reason to have a visceral dislike for the Nationals. Windsor on RN this morning was basically saying that he would find it hard to trust the Liberals. Neither of them have made statements attacking Labor and the evidence points to them eventually backing Gillard.
I think Tone’s big adventure in Rhodes was boxing and rowing, don’t think academics had much to do with anything.
But Bernard forgets that the ALP have Dr of economics Emerson, both Fergusons are economists, Anthony Albanese is an economist, so is S Crean and Tony Piccolo. Last time I looked there were 7 economists on the front and back bench of the ALP.
Windsor and Oakeshott and even Katter should be very concerned about the fiddling done by the lieberals as should we all.