Shades of roof batts as Garrett admits the con

A statement today by Peter Garrett has confirmed the Gillard Government’s Budget con job, said the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne. “The Mid Year Economic Update released in October last year projected that the average indexation rate would be 5.6 per cent beyond 2012-13. In previous Budgets this figure is used to project indexation over the forward estimates,” Mr Pyne said. “As Mr Garrett says in his statement, this is ‘standard budgetary practice’. “In this Budget, the Government claims there will be a cut to education spending if indexation drops and remains at 3 per cent for six years. “This assumption clearly abandons the ‘standard budgetary practice’ of projecting indexation levels using the average, which is the 5.6 per cent from MYEFO. “For the Budget to suggest indexation will remain at 3 per cent for six years also assumes indexation will not fluctuate, but Peter Garrett explicitly says in his statement that indexation does fluctuate, proving this is a blatant deception. “Therefore, in this Budget, past standard Budgetary practice has been abandoned so Labor can run a shameful scare campaign and they have deceptively claimed indexation will remain flat when they know it fluctuates. “To say Mr Garrett has hoisted himself on his own petard is an understatement. We are seeing shades of Mr Garrett’s handling of the roof batts fiasco now with something as crucial as the education of our children,” Mr Pyne said.