Labor releases its own 57-page document … on Liberal policies
SA Labor delved into its party coffers and used government staff to create a glossy document listing the cost of all SA Liberal Party election pledges, with figures the Opposition disputes.
SA Labor used its own party funds and Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis‘ office staff to create a glossy document to slam the SA Liberal Party for committing $4,867,380,000 in election pledges to date, a figure the Opposition disputes.
Koutsantonis presented the 57-page document, titled “SA Liberal Spending Tracker”, to journalists at a press conference on Monday morning and delivered a PowerPoint presentation listing various SA Liberal campaign promises.
A spokesperson for Koutsantonis confirmed the total cost of the document print run was $250 and came from the Labor Party’s own coffers.
“I think the appropriate questions here are, how will they pay for this? Which government services will they cut? What taxes will they increase?” Koutsantonis said about his criticism of the Liberal Party’s policies.
“If they do not spend another dollar between today and the election campaign, this is already the most expensive election campaign by any political party in South Australia’s history.”
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Shadow Treasurer Ben Hood was quick to hit back at the claims, saying that “Labor’s calculations are inaccurate and, quite frankly, made up”.
“Another day, another wild claim from Labor – and this is from the Treasurer presiding over the biggest debt in SA’s history and a $4.8 billion budget blowout across departments since 2022,” he said.
Treasurer Koutsantonis said the $5 billion figure includes election promises up to Saturday and is based on the SA Liberals’ own figures, while others are based on an independent assessment by the relevant agency.
He claimed that the SA Liberals’ policies would have to be funded by funding cuts or new taxes.
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Koutsantonis said that in comparison, Labor had pledged $1.043 billion in election commitments so far.
He was particularly critical of a tax reform commission SA Liberals announced they would form if elected at the March election.
“Any political party that will tell you the tax rates after the election and not before are the ones you have to worry about,” Koutsantonis said.
Koutsantonis did not confirm how long the document took to compile, but said that “all good governments look at anything any parliamentarian pops up as an idea”.
Asked how much time public servants spent working on the document, Koutsantonis said that “the work my office does, using the resources we had, is appropriate”.
“We do this for all costings. We do this for the Greens, we do this for One Nation, we do it for everyone – it is our job,” he said.
“I make no apology whatsoever, letting people of South Australia know exactly how much there’s been. It is an appropriate use of time for my staff to do this, and I’m happy to defend that.”
Hood said the Liberal team “is focused on something far more important: delivering practical, costed solutions to make South Australia more affordable”.
“We will be releasing all our costings during the campaign in the usual manner, so South Australians can judge for themselves,” he said.
It comes at Treasurer Koutsantonis today announced that global credit rating agency Fitch Ratings had affirmed South Australia’s AA+ credit rating with a stable outlook.
