Last night, the ALP referred elements of its Tax and Better Family Payment Plan, released on 7 September 2004, some 22 days before, for costing under the Charter of Budget Honesty.
In the documents lodged with Treasury and Finance Labor refused to submit:-
i. the $1.2b "participation dividend";
ii. the claimed benefit from ATO compliance;
iii. The $340m reversal of GST changes.
The Labor Party refused to submit its full plan because the savings claimed in (i) and (ii) do not exist and the savings claimed in (iii) do not exist in the year claimed as an offset for the policy.
Labor is concealing its policy from independent costing.
All these matters were included in the Labor policy released on 7 September. In the document Labor lodged with Treasury and Finance they have been excised.
By this careful omission Labor is covering up a hole of at least $1.9b in its tax policy.
Secretaries of Treasury and Finance have stated that they need five working days to cost policies and has asked that final requests be submitted by close of business today.
If these matters are not submitted by 5pm today, the public will be denied independent scrutiny of these promises. Labor will have conceded that its policy doesn't add up.