The Minns Labor government has accused One Nation of operating in a “fantasy land” while costing their policies as it pushes to have them costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said on Monday the Minns Labor government would be pushing to allow One Nation access to the PBO, which has only ever been used by the two major parties in NSW since it was established in 2010.
The NSW PBO is an independent, nonpartisan agency that analyses proposed election policies and gives them a price tag for the taxpayer.
Mr Mookhey said he was “looking forward to seeing the ideas put forward by the Coalition and One Nation”.
“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,” Mr Mookhey 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 Labor and Coalition plans.
“NSW can’t afford to live in budget fantasy lands. Especially when economic conditions are so uncertain. That’s why we have a PBO. That’s why the PBO should get to provide voters with independent advice about One Nation’s policies, just like it does for Labor’s and the Coalition’s.”
Under the proposed changes, the Labor, Liberal and One Nation parties will all be required to submit their proposed policies to the PBO for costing.
‘Doesn’t work’: Barnaby
One Nation deputy leader Barnaby Joyce has accused the PBO of basing its costing methodology on Labor’s treasury during a back-and-forth with News24 anchor Laura Jayes.
“The PBO costings are based on the Labor treasury’s policy position,” Mr Joyce said.
“They follow the process of Labor Party policies as the primacy … if you go through issues such as ‘what’s the cheapest form of power’, they give you the cheapest form of power if you want to achieve net zero, which we don’t want to achieve,” he said.
“We’re using something that doesn’t work.”
Mr Joyce suggested a better alternative to an independent assessment would be for his party to produce costings from accountants contracted by One Nation.
“(One Nation NSW Leader) Mike Newman is vastly more competent at costing than Premier Minns. We do actually have people on our economic policy that are working for us, like chartered accountants,” Mr Joyce said.
“I have them and we go through the processes of working out costings with a group of people that I find more reliable, to be quite frank.”
Mr Joyce also claimed Mr Mookhey’s comments exposed One Nation to not been granted access to the “resources” provided by the PBO but failed to highlight there had never been more than two One Nation MPs in NSW parliament at any given time.
The only One Nation representative sitting in either house of NSW parliament is Rod Roberts MLC.
One Nation also has access to the federal PBO but has never pursued costing assessments at a national level.