Budget bureaucrat Martin Parkinson under attack for appearing to criticise Labor’s ‘vague notions of fairness’

THE Labor Party has launched an extraordinary attack on a public servant for being out of touch with voters who will be hurt by the Budget.

Martin Parkinson

LABOR is today savaging the Government’s top economic adviser as out of touch with voters who will be hurt by the Budget.

In an extraordinary attack on a serving bureaucrat, Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson is being accused of not knowing anything about low and middle income families.

On Monday Dr Parkinson criticised Budget opponents for invoking “vague notions of fairness” and Labor is taking this as a swipe at its questioning of economic policy.

“He wouldn’t understand or spend time with a lot of people who are impacted,” said Labor MP Jim Chalmers, who as chief of staff to former Treasurer Wayne Swan had worked closely with Dr Parkinson.

Labor MP Jim Chalmers.

Mr Chalmers told Sky News today: “The Budget is unfair for one reason and that’s because it asks the most vulnerable in our community to do the heaviest lifting.”

And a former Treasurer Chris Bowen, now Labor’s shadow treasurer, joined the assault after first saying, “I have a lot of respect for Dr Parkinson.

“(But) there’s nothing vague about our deep objections to this Budget, nothing vague about our objections to its deep seated unfairness.”

The Labor Opposition is furious Dr Parkinson told an Australian National University seminar it was unremarkable to say economic reform needed to be fair, but it was “quite another thing to exhort to vague notions of fairness to oppose any form of reform”.

“If you do that, if you use such an argument to defend what is an unsustainable status quo, what you are doing is consigning Australia to a deteriorating future,” he said.

Opposition treasury spokesman Chris Bowen. Picture: Ray Strange

Mr Chalmers said Dr Parkinson was speaking out because Treasurer Joe Hockey was “missing in action” in the Budget defence.

Mr Hockey, who last week went to China for ministerial talks, is today addressing a conference in Melbourne.

In his speech he said the Budget was the first step towards posterity and the opportunity would be diminished by critics forcing the Government to spend more money on interest payments and debt servicing.

But Mr Chalmers said: “With the chief architect of this Budget Joe Hockey missing in action at the moment in defending this Budget it comes as no surprise it’s left to the Treasury secretary to make some sort of contribution.

“I would say the Treasury secretary wouldn’t mix with the kind of people who are affected by this Budget, who are asked to do the heaviest lifting.

“He wouldn’t understand or spend time with a lot of people who are impacted, like I will today ...

“So with Joe Hockey missing in action we will get Martin Parkinson into the debate. I don’t think he has a full understanding of the full unfairness of this Budget.”

Originally published as Budget bureaucrat Martin Parkinson under attack for appearing to criticise Labor’s ‘vague notions of fairness’