Canberra: Australia's two major parties granted independent lawmakers access on Friday to confidential projections of how much their campaign promises would cost — key information for the legislators who will play kingmakers following an inconclusive election.
Since neither of the major parties secured a majority in the vote, both sides are wooing a Greens lawmaker and four independents who won seats in the 150-member House of Representatives, where governments are formed.
Three of the independent lawmakers said this week they couldn't make their decision about whether to support Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Labor Party or the conservative coalition led by the Liberal Party's Tony Abbott until they knew more about how much their respective promises would cost.
The Treasury and Finance Departments usually work up such figures, but they are generally only for the eyes of the incoming government. Both Gillard's and Abbott's consent was necessary to release the data.
"Clearly the independents ... have sought this information in circumstances where their votes and their attitudes may be crucial to who forms the next government," Gillard told reporters. "In those circumstances, I think it was appropriate that each of them ... seek to have full information on costings and on budget figures."
Abbott initially refused permission, arguing that Treasury's bureaucrats couldn't fully understand the details of opposition policy and might leak the information. Gillard said Abbott notified her yesterday that he would allow the lawmakers to see the figures as long as they were kept secret from her.
Gillard allowed projections for her party's promises to be shown to both the lawmakers and Abbott's party.
Removing risk
Abbott later said that preventing Gillard from seeing the projections "removed the risk of political interference" in the independents' policy briefings.
"There can now be a full and fair briefing of the independent members [of parliament] on the policies and costings of the coalition and of the Labor Party and on that basis I hope that the independent members will be able to come to a position as soon as possible," Abbott told reporters.
Independent Rob Oakeshott welcomed Abbott's change of heart, saying he had suspected that the Liberal leader would prefer to go back to the polls rather than negotiate a minority government. If no deal is reached, that's exactly what will happen.
