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Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Page: 10076

Parliamentary Budget Office

Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (14:36): My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on the importance of transparency in costing policies? What other approaches have been proposed, and what are the consequences of not taking fiscal transparency seriously?

Mr SWAN (Lilley—Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer) (14:36): I thank the member for Parramatta for that very important question, because this government is getting on with the job of rolling out a very big reform agenda: putting a price on carbon to drive investment in renewable energy; reforming our tax system; boosting national savings through our superannuation reforms; and, of course, putting in place reforms to skills and training and establishing the NBN. We are rolling out all of these reforms in a responsible way, and the rock on which they are built is a very credible, strict, clear and consistent fiscal policy. We are building on the strength of that fiscal policy by establishing a new Parliamentary Budget Office, an independent costing service. The PBO will ensure there is greater transparency and accountability in the costing of election programs in particular. For the first time ever in the history of this parliament, the opposition and individual members and senators will have access to an independent, confidential costing service outside the general election period, and they will have access to a fully transparent election policy costing service during election periods.

This is absolutely fundamental to ensuring that the Australian public are informed about the costs of election promises, because the Australian people do not want to see ever again a repeat of what occurred during the last general election, when there was an $11 billion costings black hole in the budget estimates of the opposition. At the last election the opposition spent all of their time hiding their costings from the Australian people.

Mr Simpkins: Show us your surplus!

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Cowan is warned!

Mr SWAN: Now we find they will say anything and do anything to run away from proper scrutiny the next time around as well. They are looking for any excuse to trash the Parliamentary Budget Office before it even gets off the ground. We had the member for Mackellar come into this House last night and mount a despicable attack on prominent public servants, and that was added to by the member for Goldstein. All of this comes after those opposite had sat on a joint select committee and supported in full the proposals for the Parliamentary Budget Office. Two shadow ministers supported it. The member for Higgins supported it, and she had this to say about the PBO back then: 'It will enhance transparency and accountability.' What has changed in the past five months? What has changed in the past five months is that there is a $70 billion crater in their budget estimates, before they add any new policies for the next election. The shadow Treasurer is so scarred by his incompetence that now he wants to hide from scrutiny during the next election campaign. There are 70 billion reasons why the shadow Treasurer wants to keep his costings hidden from the Australian public—70 billion reasons why this mob cannot be trusted to run an economy and are unfit for public office.