Greens move to end policy costing farce

"The Greens will move to end, once and for all, the election policy costing shambles," Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said.

"In the next parliament we will move legislation to ensure election policies are independently costed and made publicly available as soon as Treasury and the Parliamentary Budget Office can cost them.

"To have policy costings released without independent verification and two days from polling day is an insult to the public.

"The whole point of the Charter of Budget Honesty and the Parliamentary Budget Office was to prevent parties making wild promises they knew they couldn't fund just to win an election.

"The Greens will move to make the Charter of Budget Honesty compulsory by amending the Charter to direct the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) to cost policies of each political party as they are released during the caretaker period. The PBO will then release a report with all figures and a statement on the cooperation received from the parties on the Friday before the election to ensure that when voters go into the booth they have all the facts.

"This report will operate like an independent scorecard for voters. Australians will be able to see, before polling day, which party has been the most honest throughout the campaign and the most economically responsible.

"To date, the policy costing scorecard is Greens 79, Labor 78, Coalition 0.

"The Australian people deserve more honesty from their leaders."