A senior Labor minister has accused the Coalition of racking up a “half a trillion dollar” budget black hole but was unable to explain how she had arrived at the figure.
NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister claimed the opposition had made “like half a trillion dollars of unfunded promises” that would “blow a hole in the budget”.
But when questioned by Sky News about how the government calculated the figure, Ms McAllister conceded she did not know.
“The Coalition needs to make a decision about how they approach questions of tax and reform generally,” Ms McAllister said.
“In the last few months, they’ve essentially created like half a trillion dollars of unfunded promises that would blow a hole in the budget.
“Angus Taylor has not explained how he will pay for those expenditure items that he has outlined.”
However, when pressed to explain how she had arrived at the $500 billion figure, Ms McAllister admitted she could not explain the calculation.
“I do not have each of those in front of me,” she said, before going on to say the details were made available by Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
Mr Chalmers has not released documents explaining the figure, but The Sunday Telegraph reported government modelling claimed the commitments would cost $544.4 billion over nine years.
The modelling claimed that tax indexation would cost $212 billion over nine years, reversing CGT and negative gearing would cost $43.1 billion and defence promises would cost $93.5 billion.
There was also a $18 billion price tag on superannuation concessions and a $30 billion commitment to the inland rail.
Ms McAllister said the half a trillion-dollar figure was comprised of the plan to index tax brackets, increase defence spending and some other changes around super.
The Coalition has promised to index tax brackets at an estimated budget cost of $22.5 billion over four years, and has also pledged to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP.
The proposed tax plan, announced by Opposition Leader Angus Taylor in his budget reply speech, would index income tax brackets to inflation in a bid to end bracket creep.
Under the proposal, the bottom two tax brackets would be indexed from 2028-29, with the top two following from 2031-32, at an estimated cost of $22.5 billion.
Labor has disputed the costing, saying it would cost more like $35 billion over four years, $12.5 billion more than the Coalition’s estimate.
The Coalition has indicated it would help fund the plan by cutting government spending in some areas, potentially including health and education.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has said the Coalition’s policy would be funded through savings from corporate welfare, housing and net zero bureaucracy.