Under the terms of its legislation, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) must at all times operate in an independent and non-partisan manner.

If the PBO were to cost policies attributed to an individual parliamentarian or political party without their knowledge and active participation, the PBO may be perceived as acting in a partisan manner.  Apart from the need to preserve the PBO's non-partisan status, in the normal course of events it is common for the PBO to seek clarification of policy details that are central to the accuracy of the policy costing. These details can only be provided by the originator of the policy to be costed.

Accordingly, the PBO will not prepare costings of policies attributed to an individual parliamentarian or a political party without the knowledge and active participation of the individual parliamentarian or political party in the costing process.