The debate about the Federal Government's failure to publish revisions to the forward Budget estimates for 1996-97 and the subsequent two years has so far missed a key question; if the Government was able, in February 1993, to publish revisions to the forward estimates for 1993-94 and the subsequent two years, why can it not in February 1996, publish similar revisions for the next three years?
The February 1993 revisions were published after the 1993 elections were called. There can therefore be no question of any breach of the "caretaker convention" if the February 1996 revisions were to be published now (in any event, that convention is not really relevant, as the publication of revised forward estimates based on existing policy would not involve any new policy decisions).
Government spokesmen have been reported as suggesting that, as the 1996-97 Budget will not now be brought down until August 1996, it is too early for revisions to be made. However, there was an August Budget in 1993, too. If forward estimates revisions could be published in February 1993, when the next Budget was scheduled for August, there is clearly no reason why they could not be published in February 1996.
It is true that the revisions published in 1993 applied only to the expenditure side. However, the revision process would have involved the compilation of forward estimates for GDP and other similar identities and such forward estimates naturally allow the compilation of revenue estimates. Indeed, since 1993, the Government has moved to publish forward estimates of both expenditure and revenue, as in the May 1995 Budget.
There can therefore be no possible justification for failing now to publish revisions to the forward estimates for 1996-97 and the following two years, particularly as everybody knows that such revisions must already exist in some form on Treasury and/or Finance files.
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