The Minns government will pressure One Nation to submit its policies for formal costings ahead of the March election by changing the law to allow the NSW independent Parliamentary Budget Office to run the ruler over the resurgent right-wing party’s promises.
The Herald can reveal the government will this week introduce an amendment to the legislation governing the state’s independent Parliamentary Budget Office, giving One Nation the same access to costings as both Labor and the Coalition in the lead-up to the election.
The change comes as Treasurer Daniel Mookhey laid down the gauntlet for One Nation to submit costings, saying the state “can’t afford to live in budget fantasy lands”.
“One Nation has made no secret of how much they admire American and Argentinian-style wage policies, healthcare policies and cuts to the public service,” he said.
“No doubt they will want to import these ideas into NSW, but voters deserve to have independent advice about what they mean for them. Just like they do for both Labor’s and the Coalition’s plans.”
The independent Parliamentary Budget Office, introduced before the 2011 election, provides budget statements for both major parties ahead of each election. Released in the days before polling, it has traditionally been a significant final testing ground for both the government and the opposition.
One Nation has no MPs in parliament but the government’s move to change the law to allow the budget office to conduct three sets of costings is a recognition the forthcoming election is likely to be a three-cornered race in many electorates. It comes after Labor has increasingly turned its focus to One Nation in the lead-up to the election, as repeated polls have shown the party leading the Coalition on primary vote.
One Nation leader in NSW Mike Newman has repeatedly boasted that the party believes it can form government in 2027. At the same time, former Liberal senator turned One Nation aspirant Hollie Hughes has previously defended the party’s lack of policies on issues such as health and education by pointing out One Nation did not have access to official costings.
“The problem they’ve got … they have zero members. They don’t have access to all the Treasury costings and all of those things that everyone’s going to no doubt scream about, going ‘oh, we don’t know how much this is going to cost’, because they don’t have a member to run it through that Treasury system,” she said.
“I bet Chris Minns will not be offering that support through.”
The right-wing party has focused its attention on the Hunter Valley, where it believes it will pick up lower house seats in the electorates of Cessnock and Upper Hunter. It has said it would unwind emissions reduction policies, while dramatically cutting the size of the public service.
The Herald last week revealed the party planned to scrap independent assessment of major new coal mines and hand decision-making power back to politicians, a decision former planning minister Rob Stokes said would be welcomed by “vested interests”.
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