Media Statement

Hon Peter Dunne
MP for Ohariu
Leader of UnitedFuture

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Dunne calls for independent scrutiny of parties’ costings

UnitedFuture leader and Ohariu MP Peter Dunne today called for an independent panel of “number crunchers” to test parties’ policy costings in the wake of “the sort of creative accounting that would make finance company executives look honourable”.

“What we have today is the major parties disagreeing on base numbers in launching their policies, so voters just end up confused and wondering who to believe.

“Voters would be well served by a panel of independent experts who can do the maths on each party’s numbers,” he said.

The panel could be formed three months prior to an election and consist of non-political and credible economic figures.

“The numbers and the panel’s conclusions should be made public and transparent,” Mr Dunne said.

“In launching any policy with economic or financial implications, each party should submit their costings and the numbers upon which they are basing their policy.

“If they refuse to do this, then the public would likely judge for themselves how credible or up-front the party is being and whether they have something to hide,” he said.

“The current smoke and mirrors with numbers and costings is not serving democracy or allowing voters to make the informed judgments that they should be able to expect to make,” Mr Dunne said.

Ends

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