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

I rise to support very strongly the amendment moved by the member for North Sydney because this is a fundamental aspect of ensuring you have a strong and reliable independent source of advice for the opposition and for Independent members of the parliament. Yesterday I spoke on this bill in this place. Following my contribution, the member for Lyne acknowledged that most people in this place think this is a good idea even though some—and Admiral Bradbury at the table is one—have come to this very late. We proposed this some time ago back in a budget reply speech. We all agree now that members of parliament having access to independent economic advice and costing advice is a good idea. It will improve the policy processes of this place. It will ensure that when we have policy discussions we are able to get access to the same sort of advice that the executive gets access to.

We heard from the member for Lindsay, who is the parliamentary secretary at the table, that we should not have a PBO with the right to have its own economic forecasting because we already have it done by another agency. In other words, they do not want any contestability at all for the advice. It is like somehow now the economists agree at all times and there is one font of all wisdom. I would be amazed to hear the member for Fraser make that point, because the member for Fraser has spent half of his life questioning economic advice. Quite often on blogs on the internet he debates with many like-minded economists about the minutiae of economic advice. Presumably, the member for Fraser is going to stand up and tell us that Treasury is the font of all wisdom and that everybody should accept Treasury, even though every single budget we have had from this government has never been right. Their numbers go up and up. We have been sitting here listening to Admiral Bradbury, the genius behind the border protection policy at the last election, tell us that Treasury is the font of all wisdom and we should never have any contestability because economists apparently always agree. What a load of baloney.

This is a really stupid attempt by the Labor Party if you think through the consequences. At some point they are going to be in opposition. The member for Lindsay may not be there yet, but he will be in opposition. It is wise to have an agreed formula in this place and it is good policy—and I said this yesterday—to have a strong independent Parliamentary Budget Office. If it is good enough for the Congress then why is it not good enough for us? If it is good enough to have contestable advice in the US, why is it not good enough to have it here?

There are good people in Treasury and they do a good job, but they sometimes—and with this government regularly—get their numbers wrong. The Building the Education Revolution started at about $14 billion and ended up at about $16.5 billion.

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