'No fiscal surprises after election'

Treasurer Wayne Swan holding a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith Source: news.com.au

LABOR and Coalition election promises will be openly costed by a special audit to prevent voters being caught by "fiscal surprises".

The audit through the Parliamentary Budget Office will be completed within 30 days after the election.

While the findings will not be available before votes are cast, the aim of the analysis of costings would be to ensure no party avoided accountability for their policy costings.

Treasurer Wayne Swan will announce the measure today in a speech in Sydney economists as part of a bid to swing the economic debate towards the Coalition's spending promises.

"There will be no fiscal surprises after the election," Mr Swan will say.

He will foreshadow legislation to make it harder for "any political party to try to mislead the Australian people and punish those that do".

The move underlines the Government's belief that the Coalition will not be able to properly fund its election promises, and that the threat of fudged figures being exposed after the poll would make their job harder.

"It will avoid a situation we saw last election, where the Liberal Party thought they could con the Australian people," the Treasurer will say.

"As a result of the reforms I am announcing their $11 billion black hole in the budget bottom line would have been uncovered regardless of the election outcome."

The Parliamentary Budget Office also would provide information in the lead-up to the election to "enhance the capacity for costings to be prepared... removing any excuse for policies to be released like thought balloons rather
than rigorously costed policies".

Mr Swan will acknowledge that while the global financial crisis has ended, its effects are still being felt, and are still shrinking revenue.

The Government is preparing for a tight-fisted Budget in May, apart from allocations for a National Disability Insurance Scheme and Gonski school funding.

Spending growth will be limited to two per cent a year over four years, as compared to 3.7 per cent a year average oer the 10 years before the GFC.

"While the GFC was the catalyst for ripping $160 billion in revenues out of our budget, we didn't anticipate the full impact of global volatility and broader changes on our revenue base or how long they would last," Mr Swan is
expected to tell the economists.

"We have seen a longer term hit to our revenues from the GFC, ongoing global volatility and the evolution of the mining boom through its enormous investment phase.

"These impacts have lasted longer than we originally expected.

"On top of this our revenues have taken another hit from the massive fall in commodity prices and the high dollar since I spoke to you last year."

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