Labor trips on ‘missing’ millions’

A SENIOR Victorian Labor frontbencher has made a $500 million gaffe over a regional development fund.

A SENIOR Victorian Labor frontbencher has made a $500 million gaffe over a regional development fund, further undermining the ­opposition’s financial credibility in the run-up to the November election.

A day after The Australian revealed a $1 billion budget error by the opposition Treasury spokesman, it has emerged that regional spokeswoman Jacinta Allan falsely accused the government of failing to make provision in the state budget for the last half of the $1bn Regional Growth Fund.

Describing the fund as a “hoax’’ and a “betrayal’’, Ms Allan claimed this month that the May 6 state budget did not contain the ­remaining $500m and that the Napthine government was “pretending’’ the money was in the budget for the infrastructure and jobs creation fund.

But The Australian has established that the $500 million is contained in the budget as part of global allocations for government departments in the 2014-15 statement of finances.

Ms Allan made the false claim in parliament two days after the budget was handed down, stridently declaring of the Regional Growth Fund: “We keep being told how it is $1bn and how it is locked into the budget.

“This budget shows what a ­betrayal that is, because nowhere in the budget papers is it articulated that the forward estimates show a funding allocation of the next $500m.’’

But this claim was made on a false assumption because the 2014-15 budget papers include the $500m as part of the global allocation for the State Development, Business and Innovation Department.

Victoria’s Deputy Premier Peter Ryan yesterday called for Ms Allan to apologise for the mistake, stating that because the fund was not a new initiative the budget allocation was included in the global figure.

“I want to put to rest the fiction that is perpetrated by Labor that the money has not been allocated. In fact the money has been allocated,’’ he said.

“(This) tells us Labor can’t manage money. Labor can’t even find the $500m before they can get the chance to waste it.’’

Ms Allan’s error is the second serious mistake by Labor since the budget. Labor Treasury spokesman Tim Pallas falsely claimed this week that the 2013-14 budget was in “tatters’’ and would have been in deficit if it weren’t for a $1bn federal road payment. But the payment was never factored into the 2013-14 budget surplus of $935m.

Ms Allan said Labor was right to scrutinise where the money was, adding the budget papers were opaque. “Indeed, given that Peter Ryan in (estimates) was unable to point to it in the budget without extensive support from his departmental officers shows that Labor was right to scrutinise where exactly this money was,’’ she said.