Tony Abbott has made the sensible choice to backflip on his refusal to cost his policies using Treasury figures:
Tony Abbott says his budget bottom line will be “crystal clear” before voters head to the polls, and will rely on Treasury figures as a costings base.
The announcement marks a changed stance for the Opposition Leader, who has previously expressed distrust for the Treasury figures and said voters can “do the arithmetic” on his budget.
On Tuesday the Treasury and Finance departments will release the pre-election economic and fiscal outlook (PEFO), which examines the state of the budget and the economy.
Mr Abbott says he will use the PEFO as a base for his budget costings as it will be “the best estimate going”.
“Hopefully it will be more accurate than previous figures, and we’ll obviously be working off the PEFO figures,” he told a press conference in Brisbane.
The Coalition has previously said it will not rely on the figures because the forecasts have been wrong in the past.
Treasury forecasts are dodgy. They are still far too positive. As is the RBA’s SoMP today. But it’s all we have and Abbott was looking like a goose refusing to use them.
