Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, my question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Senator Wong. Can the minister update the Senate on how the establishment of the Parliamentary Budget Office will affect the existing Charter of Budget Honesty rules around disclosure of election policy cost­ings? Are the current rules going to change?

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

I want to make it very clear to the chamber that the rules for the disclosure of election policy costings will remain the same. In fact, the joint select committee on which Senator Joyce served and of which Mr Pyne was deputy chair unanimously reco­mmended that:

Apart from the conditions for who can make a request for costings, the caretaker period costings service of the PBO is to be consistent with that of the Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998.

This makes perfect sense. As Treasurer Costello said when he introduced the Charter of Budget Honesty:

By requiring the costings to be to made publicly available, there is limited scope for the results of the costings to be misrepresented.

Unfortunately, whilst the government agrees with the joint select committee and whilst the government agrees with former Treasurer Costello, the coalition no longer does. The coalition, the party that introduced the Charter of Budget Honesty, has now become the party of budget dishonesty. That is their position when it comes to the Parliamentary Budget Office. What a fall from fiscal grace. This is the party that used to have Mr Costello and Senator Minchin—people who were serious about the balancing the budget. Now they have Mr Hockey and Mr Robb, led by Mr Abbott, who have a 100 per cent failure rate when it comes to election policy costings, who are not in government today in great part because they got their election policy costings wrong and who now have a $70 billion black hole that they do not know what to do with. So they want to walk away from the Charter of Budget Honesty because they want to hide from the Australian people the extent of their budget black hole. They are the party of budget dishonesty. (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question for Senator Wong. Has the minister seen any arguments suggesting that the Charter of Budget Honesty rules be chang­ed? Who would benefit from changing the rules to reduce transparency around election costings?

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

The only ones who would benefit from changing the rules to reduce transpare­ncy are those politicians who are hiding a $70 billion black hole, and that is those opposite. It is extraordinary that Senator Joyce actually signed up to the opposite posi­tion. I know he is busy contemplating his move to the lower house and his move to knock off Mr Truss. He might be on the phone to someone right now saying, 'I really need that seat.' I am sure those opposite would like to contemplate, were they ever to win government, the prospect of Senator Joyce being the Deputy Prime Minister. But the point is this: the coalition, through Senator Joyce and Mr Pyne, signed up to the Charter of Budget Honesty principles. Mr Hockey is walking away from it because he is too afraid to try to manage his $70 billion black hole. (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supple­mentary question. Can the minister outline to the Senate what support the model proposed by the joint select committee has received and whether this model is still as widely supported as it was when the committee reported?

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

It is important to recall how we got here. After the election, all parties signed up to the principle of a Parliamentary Budget Office. We then had a parliamentary comm­ittee that reported unanimously, including that the Charter of Budget Honesty frame­work would be retained. That report was supported across the parliament. Mr Hockey himself called for the PBO to be set up. But Mr Hockey has realised that he has a $70 billion black hole, so he wants to try to hide it, because he cannot fix it. So he is walking away from the Parliamentary Budget Office and walking away from the Charter of Budget Honesty because he has realised he cannot fix the black hole. What a disgrace from a party that used to have some fiscal and economic credibility. It used to be a par­ty that believed in budget honesty. It is now a party that is all about budget dishonesty.