Labor's first policy announcement contains a $500 million black hole, writes Milton Von Smith
Well, that didn't take long.
The 2010 election campaign is less than 24 hours old and Labor is already in deep trouble on the economic front.
Labor's first policy announcement came today: its $200 million Building Better Regional Cities initiative.
I won't bore you with the details; suffice it to say that the policy consists of two main ingredients:
- Pork Barrelling
- Marginal Electorates
Anyhow, remember Julia Gillard's promise on Thursday:
"Those expecting an old-style, spend-up-big campaign can forget it. Any commitments made in the upcoming campaign will not add a single cent - not a cent - to the budget bottom line. Any and all commitments we make will be fully costed and funded." (emphasis added)
That promise lasted less than 72 hours. The policy document released today contains no details of how the policy has been costed, what the offsets from other spending programs will be, or details of how the budget bottom line will be affected.
But it gets worse. The policy document states that:
"We will make a significant contribution – up to $15 million – to infrastructure in each regional city that submits a successful application under the program...Forty-six regional cities across Australia will be invited to participate in the program."
I don't know about you, but in my universe, 46 times $15 million is $690 million, not $200 million.
In other words, there is a black hole of half a billion dollars in Gillard's first policy announcement.
The policy document also claims that:
"It is expected that about 15 applications will be successful receiving up to $15 million each."
So perhaps they are limiting $15 million to 15 cities. That's not what the document says. Whatever. That still comes to $225 million, not $200 million. A smaller black hole, but underfunded nonetheless. Not a good look on the first policy announcement on the first day of the campaign.
That Labor boasts about being "lean" and then so recklessly wastes taxpayer funds is no surprise, of course. That is exactly what they have been doing for the last three years since the 2007 election, after declaring in that campaign that "this sort of reckless spending must stop".
