Federal finance minister Penny Wong says the federal opposition's economic credibility is in tatters after the accountants who costed its 2010 election policies were found to have breached professional standards.
A tribunal of the Institute of Chartered Accountants fined two Perth-based accountants $5000 each because their costings of coalition policies failed to contain a statement that the procedures performed do not constitute either an audit or a review.
"This is despite the fact that Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey has repeatedly claimed the dodgy costings were an audit," Senator Wong said in a statement on Thursday.
"The tribunal's findings clearly indicate the coalition sought to conceal its true costings from the Australian public, refusing to have them properly costed by the Departments of Finance and Treasury."
Senator Wong said the opposition plans to do the same again by hiding their policy costings at the next election.
She said at the last election the opposition were found to have a $10.6 billion black hole in their election policy costings, and since then Mr Hockey has made clear the coalition needs to make $70 billion in cuts just to get to the starting line.
"The Australian public deserve the right to scrutinise opposition polices," she said.
She said the opposition must commit their election policies to Treasury, Finance or the new independent Parliamentary Budget Office for costing.
"Anything less than that is a sham," she said.
Senator Wong and Mr Hockey will participate in "The Fiscal Debate" being hosted by the Australian Financial Review in Sydney on Thursday.
