The ALP costing (mind you not including the impact of the Greens alliance).
The Coalition costing.
The Coalition does a lot better in the new future – where forecasts are more likely to be more accurate – and worse in the further furture – where the forecasts are more speculative. In those future years the ALP is reliant on income from the mining tax. If that mining tax income is less than forecast (a very likely outcome IMHO) the budget under an ALP-Greens government starts looking very dodgy.
This just shows what a fraud the mining tax was. “Sharing wealth”, no, just paying for debt.
.
2 Sep 10 at 8:09 am
Cut it any way you want, the Treasury costings show Hockey and Robb are not up to their respective jobs – they weren’t competent in preparing their estimates and they aren’t competent defending them now that this has turned into a media battle.
The worst part of it is that they didn’t need to play funny money games with contingency reserves to create an illusory and indefensible improvement in the bottom line. All they had to do was ensure any Coalition spending commitments were broadly offset with savings, which they were, and then make a general commitment to reducing the deficit faster than Labor. Any minor errors could have been defended as a natural consequence of any Opposition’s lack of access to the bureaucracy.
Instead, by evading Treasury scrutiny before August 21, and trying to claim a much better budget outcome than Labor but basing it on fudges and tricks, Hockey and Robb have further damaged public perceptions of Coalition economic competence and undermined trust with the electorate and the independents.
If Gillard survives, they have a lot to answer for.
Concerned Conservative
2 Sep 10 at 8:27 am
I’d be interested to hear why you think the mining tax income will be less than forecast, given that commodity prices are now at an all-time high (http://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/frequency/commodity-prices.html)
Matt C
2 Sep 10 at 9:19 am
Because such prices will attract competition from overseas. Imagines the product cyle trade theory applied to foreign direct investment. Supply will increase and prices will not remain at historical highs.
The caveat would be India liberalising and/or China liberalising it’s Western rural half.
.
2 Sep 10 at 9:29 am
Fair enough, but I find it difficult to believe that increasing world supply is not already factored into commodity price forecasts from Treasury and others.
Matt C
2 Sep 10 at 9:31 am
Their assumptions are similar to mine.
.
2 Sep 10 at 9:39 am
weren’t these costings supposed to be confidential?
daddy dave
2 Sep 10 at 9:53 am
MattC – see here, here and here.
Sinclair Davidson
2 Sep 10 at 10:08 am
Well can we know Matt C? Treasury and the govt refuse to tell the public what their assumptions are
bianconieri
2 Sep 10 at 10:10 am
I’m in the mining exploration industry and we are watching the results of this election very, very closely.
If the Coalition get up, then there will be the mother of all commodity booms down the road.
If the ALP/Greens get up, then we will batten down the hatches, cut expenditure and wait, or, go overseas and explore as many are now doing.
Louis Hissink
2 Sep 10 at 10:40 am
“Conservative Bias Allowance Adjustment”
Is that the treasury admitting they are biased against conservatives?
2dogs
2 Sep 10 at 11:48 am
Matt C:
If Commodity prices are at an all time high this is EXACTLY the reason why you might expect that future income could be lower. The phrase itself “all time high” implies that it is above a long term trending average.
RichardK
2 Sep 10 at 11:57 am
So these ‘costings’ don’t include the policies of the Greens or the the NBN – the latter $37 billion over what’s required, according to the big Telcos.
This is a joke.
C.L.
2 Sep 10 at 12:31 pm
The media discussion of these estimates(and the comments of the Rustic Ratbags)have been very superficial.All estimates such as these are based on arbitrary assumptions and there is usually a wide range of acceptable assumptions.For example,the Treasury appears to be assuming too low an interest rate in calculating NBN savings.Also, the Treasury is presented as an independent expert with special skills and information.In fact it is partisan,has a conflict of interest(who prepared the government’s estimates?)and has a recent poor track record.On the latter,note its support of the stimulus and the original version of the mining tax.
Tom Valentine
2 Sep 10 at 1:17 pm
When I first saw the figure “$7 billion blackhole” I was aghast. But if it constitutes only a few percentage points of their whole projected budget, unless their is some policy, which demands more accurate projections, surely the $7 billion is within an acceptable margin of error?
Or is their some policy that says otherwise?
Peter Patton
2 Sep 10 at 1:30 pm
Why would you be “aghast,” Peter?
I’m aghast at the $37 billion NBN black hole and the $50 billion crater where surplus city used to be.
C.L.
2 Sep 10 at 2:31 pm
$37 billion is just the starting figure. Wait until the serious carpet-baggers arrive and announce a “price increase”, or local governments and/or utility companies put a levy in stringing cable on poles.
Keith
3 Sep 10 at 4:55 pm
Does anyone have any confidence that the same set of assumptions were applied to both the coalition’s, and labor’s costings ?
Keith
3 Sep 10 at 4:57 pm
Keith, if they weren’t, there should be hell to pay. In fact, that should be established as being the case by an independent audit.
dover_beach
3 Sep 10 at 5:01 pm