The fraudulent accounting practices of the Gillard Government must be investigated by the Auditor General.

 

“The fact this government plans to treat funds for the $10 billion ‘Brown-Gillard Bank’ outside the budget and therefore off the bottom line beggars belief,” Shadow Finance Minister Andrew Robb said today.

 

“The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a giant slush fund that will see taxpayers’ money funnelled into speculative, high risk ventures. This bank will be used to fund pet projects of the Greens as confirmed by the ban on the corporation from investing in Carbon Capture and Storage.”

 

The deception of this government is highlighted by the fact that there are two programs in the 2011-12 budget designed to deliver virtually the same outcomes as the ‘Brown-Gillard Bank’.

 

These include the Renewable Energy Venture Capital Fund and the Emerging Renewables program which both hit the budget bottom line as they should. 

 

“This will be $10 billion of borrowed money kept away from the budget bottom line. This is in addition to the $18.2 billion of borrowed money the government will pump in to the NBN, also off-budget,” Mr Robb said.

 

“We now have an unprecedented $28.2 billion that will be kept off-budget. This is based on the dubious assumption that these projects, that the private sector doesn’t want a bar of, will generate commercial returns to taxpayers.

 

“If these funds were treated on-budget Labor’s claims to future surpluses would be blown apart. This government changes the budget rules to suit its own political ends and highlights its preparedness to resort to the use of ‘funny money’ to fund its profligacy,” Mr Robb said.  

 

“The Gillard government has become dangerous and the Auditor General needs to look into its increasingly dodgy budget practices because they are out of control,” Mr Robb said.