http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/labor-buries-greens-co...


LABOR has moved to shield the Greens from scrutiny by blocking the release of publicly funded costings of policies, in a strategy that has angered some backbenchers.

Since the 2010 election, Wayne Swan has authorised Treasury to calculate the cost of at least a dozen Greens initiatives in line with the party's agreement to back Julia Gillard's minority government. But The Australian can reveal Treasury has rejected attempts by the opposition to access the costing documents under Freedom of Information legislation, arguing they were considered by cabinet and were therefore part of the "deliberative process" and exempt from public release.

Liberal MP Jamie Briggs, who sought the information, yesterday accused the Treasurer of "a cover-up". Government MPs were also concerned, with Labor's chief whip Joel Fitzgibbon saying taxpayers had a right to know the cost of Greens proposals.

"I don't think that taxpayers should fund the costing of policies of a political party absent the public being able to see those costings," Mr Fitzgibbon told The Australian. "If the taxpayer is funding the costings of minor parties, they should be able to access the results."

Mr Swan refused to answer questions about the costings or the FOI application, instead accusing the Liberals of hypocrisy for having failed to subject its own policies to proper costing.

But, as part of the Greens alliance with the government, the minor party has the right to seek Treasury costing of proposals and could conceivably have done so for policies such as carbon tax reforms, the proposed Denticare universal dental care scheme and for the effect of proposed changes to budget legislation.

Over the past month Labor has sought to distance itself from the Greens amid fears that closeness will alienate socially conservative Labor voters in suburban and regional electorates. At a fiery NSW Labor conference earlier this month delegates lined up to attack the Greens and Mr Fitzgibbon demanded their policies be independently costed before the next election, due next year.

Yesterday Mr Briggs said he had used FOI legislation to seek all correspondence and advice relating to requests from the Greens for costing of policy proposals since the 2010 federal election.

On July 20, the Treasury informed him there were 12 sets of documents in existence but that none could be released because they would reveal cabinet considerations or deliberations.

"Why is Wayne Swan trying to cover up the cost of Greens policies?" Mr Briggs said. "There can be no logical reason why these documents would have been produced for cabinet and the law says they have to have been produced for cabinet."

Declaring he planned to appeal against the decision, Mr Briggs said the Coalition had no problem with the government costing Greens election policies, such as "some of their loopy economic policies".

Mr Briggs said: "The question here is why the Labor Party is preventing these costings being released."

Victorian Labor leader Daniel Andrews, who led his party to fend off a strong challenge from the Greens in a weekend by-election in the seat of Melbourne by arguing for costing transparency, said all parties had a responsibility to release expert costing for election policies.

"There is no doubt Labor's victory in the Melbourne by-election was in part the result of pressure we placed on the Greens to release costings for policies that failed legitimate media scrutiny," Mr Andrews said. "During the Victorian 2010 campaign, Premier Ted Baillieu refused to send his policies to Treasury experts for official costings and Victorians today are paying the price, with a litany of broken promises and blowouts on major projects from the Baillieu government."

Another Labor federal MP, asking not to be named, said he could understand that the cabinet would want to cost Greens policies.

"But I don't see why they should be kept secret," the MP said. "Part of our whole attack against the Greens is that they promise the world and are never held accountable for the cost. If we have costs, we should be prepared to put them out there."

The Australian sent Mr Swan a series of questions about the documents and why they could not be released. He declined to answer. But the Treasurer said through a spokesman that the Liberals had "refused to have any policies costed whatsoever" despite having made clear they had a $70 billion budget shortfall.

The Coalition had also argued against the policies costed by the newly created Parliamentary Budget Office being publicly released. "So hearing Mr Briggs moaning about this matter is simply the next episode in the rolling slapstick comedy which is the Liberals' costings record and which has done such incredible damage to the Liberals' economic credentials under Mr (Joe) Hockey and Mr (Tony) Abbott," the spokesman said.

Greens leader Christine Milne said her party had worked with Labor for the creation of the PBO while the Coalition had refused to have its 2010 election policies properly costed by the Treasury.

"The challenge to the Coalition is will they agree to have their election policies costed by either Treasury or the Parliamentary Budget Office?" Senator Milne said.

"They now have no excuse about confidentiality because policies admitted for costing to the PBO before an election are confidential. It will be a confidence trick on the Australian community if the Coalition run away from Treasury and the PBO and instead go to a friendly firm for their costing."

Mr Fitzgibbon said he was pleased the PBO would be be able to shine a light on Greens promises. "I give the example of their promise to abolish all TAFE fees and charges," Mr Fitzgibbon said. "They run around from electorate to electorate making that promise without saying how they would pay for it - either by raising taxes or cutting services."

FOI consultant Peter Timmins said the invocation of cabinet exemptions over the costings documents sounded unusual.

More theory is that holding back on the Greens' costings is to shield them.

Those costings are likely to be so expensive, that to release them publicly would cause them (Greens) quite a bit of damage.

progressiveslol wrote on Jul 26^th, 2012 at 12:03pm:


Let's hope the Greens put their policies to the Parliamentary Budget Office as well. If they want to be taken seriously, they should do this.