Election 2025: Labor to release its costings early in wedge for Coalition

Labor will release its pre-election costings within days and pressure Peter Dutton to outline where he will cut spending as part of his pledge to deliver a better budget bottom line.

Anthony Albanese on the campaign trail in Queensland. Picture: Mark Stewart / NewsWire

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Labor will release its pre-election costings within days and put pressure on Peter Dutton to immediately outline where he will cut spending as part of the ­Coalition’s pledge to deliver a better budget bottom line.

The Australian has been told Anthony Albanese will likely release his Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook either at the weekend or early next week, ahead of the requirement to make the spending and savings numbers public 48 hours before election day.

The move will allow Labor to spend the last week of the campaign accusing the Coalition of “secret cuts”, with the Opposition leader likely to release his costings late in the week.

The coming stoush over costings comes as Labor will on Wednesday claim the Coalition has made $50bn of election commitments, not counting its spending on nuclear energy and defence.

While Jim Chalmers last week declared the pre-election costings would be “broadly the same” as what was outlined in the March budget, campaign promises are likely to increase deficits by up to $5bn over the forward estimates.

The March budget outlined an uncosted pre-election spending splurge that drove deficits up by nearly $35bn since December, on top of more than $8bn of policies announced that were provisioned for in previous budgets.

After The Australian revealed during the last campaign that Labor would go to the 2022 election proposing higher deficits than the Coalition, Mr Albanese waited until the latest possible day to release his full costings.

Mr Dutton and opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor have vowed to produce costings ahead of the election showing lower deficits than those forecast by Labor.

This is despite unveiling a swag of big spending commitments in the lead-up to polling day, including $6bn for a cut to the fuel excise, $10bn for a one-off tax cut for workers earning up to $144,000, an increase in defence spending and $1.25bn on tax breaks for some first-home buyers.

Mr Dutton has vowed to cut the public service by 41,000 over five years and repeal Labor’s $17bn of tax cuts, but there is likely to be more savings unveiled when the Coalition’s costings are released.

Mr Dutton and the Prime Minister will both be in Western Australia from Wednesday as they campaign in battleground Perth seats.

In addition to unveiling his defence policy in WA, Mr Dutton and senior Coalition frontbenchers will also dump out other policies in a frenetic few days before the Anzac Day long weekend.

Senior Coalition figures on Wednesday will launch attacks against Labor seizing on a new IMF World Economic Outlook report warning that countries must strengthen fiscal buffers amid global shocks.

The IMF report said “countries should reprioritise expenditures and boost fiscal revenues, including by broadening their tax bases”.

With Labor claiming the ­Coalition was increasing spending by $50bn on top of nuclear and defence, the Treasurer said this would force a Dutton government to “cut essential ser­vices even harder”.

“Every extra dollar of spending by the Liberals means an extra dollar cut from health and education,” Dr Chalmers said.

“Their dodgy and deceptive figures already show a budget black hole worth billions and they’ve got tens of billions of unaccounted spending on top of that. The Liberals need to account for at least $50bn in spending commitments, and that’s before even considering tens of billions for defence and their $600bn nuclear scheme.

“Peter Dutton must come clean on his secret costs and even harsher cuts, and how much Australians will pay as a consequence.”