Labor’s finance spokesperson Katy Gallagher has been forced to correct Anthony Albanese after he told journalists a key election policy had been fully costed when it had not.
During the first week of the federal election campaign, Labor announced a $135 million policy to take pressure off emergency departments by establishing 50 Medicare urgent care centres across Australia.
When questioned about whether $135m over four years would enough to deliver the 50 clinics — given Labor promised to build an urgent care medical facility in a Brisbane suburb for $33m at the 2019 election — Mr Albanese said the policies in the 2022 campaign were different.
“There’s a different commitment, different policy,” he said on Wednesday.
“This (policy) has been fully costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, the PBO.”
On Thursday evening, Senator Gallagher posted a statement on Twitter to clarify the policy was not fully costed.
She said while the independent PBO had done work on the policy, ”for the avoidance of any confusion, has not been formally costed by the PBO”.
“All of Labor’s policies and costings will be released before the election,” Senator Gallagher said.
The coalition has seized on the remarks and used them to reinforce its case that Labor is not ready for to form a government.
“Anthony Albanese said the project was fully costed … he’s either ill-informed, not across xjmtzywthe facts, or have they fudged the figures?” Health Minister Greg Hunt said.
“You can’t trust Labor with health because you can’t trust them with economic management.”
