Tuesday 16 April 2019

Morrison and Frydenberg caught out deceiving Treasury officials and lying to the national electorate as the federal election campaign kicked off last week


On 11 April 2019, the same day Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the federal election date, The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will use new Treasury costings to warn Australians of a $387 billion burden from Labor tax hikes and revenue increases in an incendiary attack after launching the May 18 federal election campaign.

Mr Morrison will use the figures to outline the full impact of Labor's plan to oppose $230 billion in personal income tax cuts and extract another $157 billion in higher revenue from negative gearing, dividend changes and other measures.

However this alleged Treasury advice was not distributed to journalists.

Instead they allegedly received this:
Which is definitely not a Treasury document, couched as it is in terms of election slogans such as “Retiree tax” for changes to the treatment of excess franking credits, “Housing tax” for changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, "Superannuation tax" for changes to the cap on non-concessional superannuation contributions and "Family business tax" to changes to the rules for private discretionary trusts.

However, the truth will out…….

Chief political correspondent for The Age:
What is missing from this deception on the part of Morrison & Co is the exact wording of the request to cost received by Treasury - we already know they didn't classify the request in terms of it containing details of Labor policies.

If its anything like the last time the Liberal-Nationals pulled this particular unethical campaign trick, what Treasury was actually asked to cost was slightly different to Labor’s stated policies.

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