Coalition MPs concede the party’s newly released immigration policy has not been costed in full by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), despite Angus Taylor defending the plan as “budget neutral”.
Taylor, and the deputy Liberal leader, Jane Hume, have said repeatedly the Coalition “worked closely” with the independent budget watchdog on its plan to reduce net overseas migration to 100,000 for two years.
Announced on Tuesday, the policy would see net overseas migration rates of 130,000 in the third year and 160,000 in the fourth.
Business and the university sector have warned the cuts are arbitrary, dangerous for the economy and likely to exacerbate shortages in key sectors, including health and aged care.
Taylor’s office said they planned to have the policy costed before the next federal election, but have used internal analysis and existing costings during the design process. Coalition sources told Guardian Australia the PBO had not conducted a full analysis of the new policy before its release.
PBO officials are not allowed to discuss costings for members of parliament but can choose to clarify references in media reports if they are incorrect or misrepresent PBO work.
The PBO declined to comment on Wednesday.
“We’ve been working closely with the Parliamentary Budget Office on analysis of our initiatives and we are confident that this package is budget neutral,” Taylor said announcing the plan on Tuesday.
He said the Coalition had “done exactly what the government does” and then accused Labor of not releasing modelling.
Labor and One Nation both want to bring down international arrivals, seeking to capitalise on growing anti-migration sentiment and pressure on housing and essential services.
A policy document said the Coalition had worked with the PBO to assess “the impact of the package on the budget”, finding it would generate a small positive return.
Challenged over the release of PBO costings on Wednesday, Taylor told Channel Nine: “We’ve released the outcomes of that budget analysis that we’ve been doing …
“We have released the figures, and we’ve said it’s budget neutral, and we’ve laid that out.”
The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, warned that the Coalition plan would hurt agriculture, aged care and even defence.
“What we see from the Liberal party is actually policy chasing One Nation rather than policy in the national interest,” he said during a visit to Perth.
“Immigration is absolutely central to this. We need to get the numbers right. We do need to manage them down. That’s what our government’s doing, but we need to do it in a way which can maintain our economy and maintain vital sectors like the defence industry here in Western Australia.”
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss, Andrew McKellar, rejected the planned cuts, arguing Australia had a housing supply problem, not an immigration problem.
“When we look at what the Coalition has said, even when we look at what the government and One Nation have said, the problem is each of them are starting from the proposal that they’re targeting a net overseas migration figure. That’s the wrong place to start.”
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