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:
 |
| via @Bowenchris |
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:
"We were not asked to cost another party's policies and would not do so if the request was made specifically to 'cost Party X's policy'," Treasury Secretary Phil Gaejtens told Labor.https://t.co/dFuxDroM7O— David Crowe (@CroweDM) April 12, 2019
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.
