Caretaker period costings

During the caretaker period for a general election, parliamentary parties and independent parliamentarians can request costings of their publicly announced election policies. We publish these requests, complete the analysis and publicly release the costing responses as soon as possible, as per our legislation. For further information about these arrangements see the Guidance document: Costing policy proposals during the caretaker period [Download PDF 512 KB].

Requests to undertake policy costings, and our responses, are available on our 2019 Caretaker costings page. 

For costings undertaken by the Department of Finance or the Treasury, please visit www.electioncostings.gov.au.

Parliamentary party lists of election commitments

The PBO is required to publish lists of election commitments for all major parliamentary parties after each general election.

Major parties need to provide a list of their election commitments to the Parliamentary Budget Officer by 5pm (AEST) on the day before polling day. The lists are publicly released on the day after polling day. Major parties are parties with five or more members of parliament before the commencement of the caretaker period. 

The following lists of commitments for the 2019 election were provided to the Parliamentary Budget Officer prior to the legislated deadline of 5pm Friday, 17 May 2019. Lists are as provided by the parties and have not been altered by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

• Australian Greens [Download PDF 117 KB]
• Australian Labor Party [Download PDF 77 KB]
• The Coalition [Download PDF 119 KB]

The PBO takes into account the information provided by the parties as well as public announcements made by the parties when preparing the final lists of election commitments which are used in preparing the post-election report.

In the lead up to this election, the PBO provided minor parties, that is, all independent parliamentarians and parties with fewer than five members, with the option to have the financial impact of their election commitments included in the PBO’s post-election report of election commitments. No parties exercised this option.

2019 Post-election report

The PBO released the 2019 Post-election report on 19 June 2019. 

Within 30 days after the end of the caretaker period for a general election, or 7 days before the first sitting day of Parliament, the PBO publishes a report that presents the budget impacts of each of the election commitments of the major parliamentary parties, including their aggregate impact on the fiscal position. Minor parties may choose to opt in to have their election commitments included in an addendum to this report. The opt in arrangements and implications for minor parties are detailed in the Guidance document: Allowing minor parties to opt in to the PBO’s Post-election report of election commitments [Download PDF 119 KB].

The post-election report must include the estimates of the impact of each party’s individual election commitments and their combined impact on the budget over the forward estimates.  The combined impact of each party’s election commitments on the budget is provided over the medium term (11 years). The combined impact of election commitments shows the effect of commitments to cap or otherwise limit total tax receipts. 

The post-election report includes the budget impact of each individual election commitment, over the forward estimates period. For significant individual commitments, the medium-term impact is also included. Significant commitments are:

• the top ten policy proposals by dollar value
• any proposal with an impact of over $1 billion in a year
• proposals with a materially different impact beyond the forward estimates.

For further information about these arrangements see the Guidance document: Post-election report of election commitments: medium-term reporting [Download PDF 494 KB].

Guidance materials

There are four guidance notes that set out how the PBO approaches caretaker costings and the Post-election report:

• 2019 Post-election report of election commitments [Download PDF 169 KB]
• Costing policy proposals during the caretaker period [Download PDF 510 KB]
• Post-election report of election commitments: medium-term reporting [Download PDF 493 KB]
• Allowing minor parties to opt in to the PBO's post-election report of election commitments [Download PDF 119 KB]