Victorian election 2022: Parliamentary Budget Office wants greater costing powers

The state’s budget watchdog is calling for greater powers allowing it to be the sole provider of election services.

Daniel Andrews celebrates Labor’s 2022 election win. Picture: Jason Edwards

The state’s independent budget watchdog has called for greater powers, warning Victorians are being dudded during election campaigns.

In a report tabled on Tuesday the Parliamentary Budget Office says all major parties should be required to publish a pre-election costings.

And it has called for legislation requiring the PBO be the sole provider of election services.

It comes amid criticism of the public sector for thwarting requests for information, and concerns incumbent governments to leverage ownership of the budget.

“Prior to our establishment in 2018, members of parliament could have election policies costed by the Department of Treasury and Finance,” the PBO said.

“Political parties were reluctant to use its service, perceiving it to serve the government of the day.

“The Department of Treasury and Finance parallel election costing service creates a pathway for the incumbent political party to leverage the advantage of the department’s ownership of the budget.

“The reluctance of other political parties to use the Department of Treasury and Finance service is well established. This is driven by their perceptions about its independence from the government of the day.”

According to its report of operations for November’s state election, the office completed 894 policy costing requests – an increase of 621 per cent.

“The Department of Treasury and Finance was the entity with the poorest information supply performance,” the report found.

“In particular, this department generally did not respond with a valid response or reason to our requests for documents relating to costings or reasonable assurance under caretaker conventions of the incumbent political party’s election policies held by the department.

“Combined with unchecked poor information supply and no link to the budget process for our election costing service, the opportunity for political advantage is amplified.”

The PBO said while 10 political parties had utilised its election costing services, only the ALP used the Department of Treasury and Finance service.

Daniel Andrews refused an offer of election costing services, it said.

“The opportunity for political advantage created by the existence of the Department of Treasury and Finance parallel election costing service is at the expense of the value to Victorians of a single independent service that costs election policies on a comparable basis,” it said.

“It also raises questions about adherence to the caretaker convention principle of the public sector being seen to be apolitical during caretaker period.

“Clearly there is a longstanding and well-documented perception that the Department of Treasury and Finance election costing service isn’t independent, that has been left unaddressed for some time.”

Among six recommendations the PBO has called for a requirement for costed pre-election reports to be completed for all parties during the election campaign to help inform voters.

In NSW such reports are published five days before an election, and include the total financial impact of all policies.

At November’s election, an estimated 2.3 million people, or 60.1 per cent of voters, voted in the 12 days before election day.

It has also called for a more independent funding model and greater oversight of the state’s budget.

In a report to the PBO, Shadow Treasurer Brad Rowswell echoed concerns around the PBO’s funding and capacity to complete its work.

“The opposition notes with concern that there were various constraints placed on the PBO during the election year which ultimately inhibited and slowed the process of our policies being costed, and advice being provided to us,” he said.

“Weaknesses in the capacity to provide costings and advice to the opposition were largely not the fault of the PBO, but instead caused by failures by the Victorian government to adequately fund the operations of the PBO; and provide timely and fulsome responses to PBO information requests.

“Funding provided to the PBO must at a minimum ensure that it is adequately resourced to deliver timely responses to advice and costing requests throughout the current term of government, and scale up capacity to respond to requests as workload volumes increase in 2025 and 2026 ahead of the next state election.

“For the PBO to effectively deliver advice and costings as requested by the Opposition and the minor parties, the Victorian Government’s approach to engaging with and responding to the PBO must substantially improve.”

Mr Rowswell also discrepancies between the costing assumptions used by the PBO and information held by government needed to be avoided.

“The opposition also has concerns about the continued presence of the non-independent Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF) as an alternative organisation providing election costings,” he said.

“Given the legislated role of the PBO to undertake independent election costings for all political parties, this alternative costing option put forward by DTF is not necessary or appropriate.

“The suggestion by the Victorian government during the 2022 election period that DTF was in a position to provide independent costings of equal or better standing than the PBO was misleading and undermined the independent body.

The PBO has previously warned it was being starved of funds despite warnings it can’t perform critical functions.

Since its establishment in 2018 the PBO’s base budget has not increased beyond $3.3m.

And while it continues to operate within budget, it has been forced to slash staff numbers to do so.