Ken Henry says Treasury not politicised by costing Coalition's tax-free lunch plan
The former Treasury secretary has weighed in after Labor's use of Treasury to cost a version of the Coalition’s small business pitch rekindled debate about politicising the public service.
The Coalition has slammed Labor for asking Treasury to cost the opposition's plan to allow small business deductions for lunches and entertainment, but former Treasury secretary Ken Henry rejects the idea that such requests risk politicising the public service.
However, Henry concedes that the Parliamentary Budget Office is better placed to undertake such work and argues politicians on both sides should stick more closely to budget honesty rules.
“It [governments getting Treasury to cost opposition policies] was very common in the 1980s … right through to the 1990s,” Henry, who led Treasury from 2001 to 2011, told Capital Brief.
He said the Charter of Budget Honesty Act introduced in 1998 did not include a convention to stop the government making requests of Treasury to cost political opponents' policies. But there was an expectation, specifically during election campaigns, that policies would be costed by Treasury and Finance and that the independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), established in 2012, would be used for this purpose..
