Chris Berg has a piece in the Sunday Age on the Charter of Budget Honesty.
As Ross Gittins wrote in 2004, when it was Peter Costello savaging the Labor opposition over its policy arithmetic: ”The government is largely feeding back to the bureaucrats their own costings, whereas the opposition runs a high risk of slipping up somehow and being monstered by the Treasurer.”
From government, Labor is playing the same game against the Coalition that, for a decade, the Coalition played against Labor.
Swan knows it well. In 2007, he too waited to the last minute to submit his policies.
The real issue here though isn’t the tit-for-tat game that polticians play. It’s the fact that nobody actually trusts Treasury. Here is John Quiggin in 2004.
Although it’s hard to predict the politics in advance, Labor would probably be better advised to get an independent costing from a consultancy like Access Economics[1] before issuing its policies. Government pressure to submit policies to Treasury and Finance could be the occasion for an attack on the politicisation of the Public Service.
The problem is that everyone thinks of Treasury as being an independent body – but they are no such thing. Treasury is a department of government, under the direct control of government and for as long as that situation persists they cannot and should not be considered to be anything else. As Berg suggests
Secretary of the Treasury Ken Henry masterminded the government’s controversial response to the financial crisis. Treasury’s role formulating the stimulus package has been highly political. It even had to release a statement admitting a graph in the 2010-11 budget, which the government claimed showed the success of the stimulus, was misleading.
The Coalition has accused Henry of partisanship for years. In May, Joe Hockey refused to say whether Henry would keep his job under the Coalition. Henry and his subordinates are political players now. Their fortunes are coupled to the fortunes of the Labor government. Shadow finance minister Andrew Robb said Treasury was compromised by a ”political agenda”.
The leak seems to confirm this. Sure, the opposition’s figures would have been released eventually (that’s the point), but it’s likely someone in Treasury is openly batting for Labor.
It’s concrete evidence of the corruption of the charter.
The Charter of Budget Honesty is not worth the paper it is written on for as long as it does not have any audit or enforcement mechanisms associated with it. For as long as Treasury can publish dodgy graphs and make dodgy pronouncements without any consequence we can expect to see more and more politicisation of the Treasury.
It is time the revisit Malcolm Turnbull’s idea of a CBO type institution that is not accountable to the government (but rather to the Parliament) and to have the Secretary of the Treasury being a direct political appointment. Current arrangements are clearly unsatisfactory.
Excellent analysis by Berg and your good self, Sinclair.
And let’s not forget Professor Kwiggin.
He supports Abbott and Robb’s stance!
C.L.
15 Aug 10 at 8:26 pm
Sinc:
I agree that we shouldn’t kid ourselves any more that the Treasury is politicized.
Of course it is.
However I see your solution as a little problematic. The government party here calls the shots in most respects and we don’t have a separation of the function of the executive that would offer a separation of powers for oversight that the CBO would provide in the US context.
JC
15 Aug 10 at 8:43 pm
Er Sinkers and Borg should read psge 101 of the 1949 Boiler Lecter. Tone wen to law shcool but does’nt know that after Leyland brothwrs,. the Chatter of BUDget honesty became a moop oint. Robb is geting his advice from Catalaxian cracklepops. Er guesss the difference, Sinkler. Labor proved it was credible on ficsal policy so Swan was right to delay the submittion of his cocklings. Um, see if you can fugire out whty its different now, despite the structural deficit and it wasn’;t ‘leaked’.Henry isn’t biased but is a good friend of Abott. I’ll let you fund the details. Hint -Tone has a daughter named after him. Typical Catlaaxion crabpots.
C.L.
15 Aug 10 at 8:47 pm
moderator:
Homer is posting comments under CL’s name, I think. Best to catch it before he goes overboard.
JC
15 Aug 10 at 8:51 pm
I could be mistaken but earlier in the campaign I thought I heard Abbott talking about his intention, if PM, to establish a CBO style institution.
TerjeP
16 Aug 10 at 1:05 pm
I tip my hat to CL. I couldn’t have done it better myself.
actually I could have – lose the punctuation
jtfsoon
16 Aug 10 at 1:24 pm
“The government party here calls the shots in most respects and we don’t have a separation of the function of the executive that would offer a separation of powers for oversight that the CBO would provide in the US context.”
sure we do, the auditor-general reports to parliament.
pedro
16 Aug 10 at 1:45 pm