Under the relevant legislation, both the New South Wales government and the opposition face an obligation to put their spending plans before an independent costing process. On Monday, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey indicated he would pursue a requirement for One Nation to submit its platform to the Parliamentary Budget Office for assessment. Before any of the three parties' platforms reach voters, that office would prepare a fiscal impact assessment covering all of them.
Labor described the adjustment as an acknowledgment that all three parties stood a genuine chance of leading the next government, with the relevant office set to receive extra resources to handle the anticipated increase in workload. Premier Chris Minns argued to reporters that the budget office's role in vetting party commitments protects voters from being told one thing before polling day and another thing after, though the body has drawn on only the two major parties as clients throughout its existence in NSW since 2010.
Although the federal equivalent of this resource was available to One Nation, the party left it untapped, drawing repeated complaints from political opponents who pointed to a pattern of putting forward policies without accompanying cost estimates.
At a press event, Newman — who leads the party in NSW — argued that Labor's economic management has historically fallen short and called on the party to outline the projected costs of rolling out renewable energy across the state. Drawing on his background in financial analysis and a family tie to a former Australian Stock Exchange chairman, the candidate presented data indicating that metro and light rail projects had exceeded their original budgets by billions of dollars during Labor's tenure, then stated that One Nation would not accept being lectured on the matter. He argued that Labor was subjecting his party's policies to scrutiny it was unwilling to apply to its own costings, and that the public would see through what he characterised as a politically motivated process masquerading as fiscal oversight.
Barnaby Joyce, who now serves as deputy head of One Nation after previously holding the role of deputy prime minister, expressed little confidence in the Parliamentary Budget Office, telling a major news channel that those who wished to use it were free to do so, while noting that his own team of economic advisers was, in his view, a more dependable resource. When Joyce was asked in September to lay out the financial workings of a party proposal that would allow people to access their superannuation savings early, no specific figures were put forward.
Flinders University's Josh Sunman said he could see the logic behind Labor's move to put One Nation in a difficult position, though he questioned whether the tactic would resonate with voters at street level, noting that many One Nation supporters were driven less by policy detail than by a broader sense of disillusionment with the two established parties and a desire for something different.
One Nation has plans to field candidates across all 93 lower house seats at the March state election, and the party's polling numbers have held up across both NSW and federal surveys. A late-August poll of 1,028 state residents, conducted by DemosAU, placed One Nation at 23 per cent on primary vote intention — good for third spot, trailing the coalition on 25 per cent and the Labor government on 32 — all of this despite the party holding no seats in the lower house at the time.
Passage of the proposed changes through the upper house — where the government falls short of a majority — would require opposition backing, though the coalition has signalled it is prepared to support the measure. Greens representatives announced their opposition to the proposal, contending that it would afford One Nation a degree of recognition and standing the party viewed as unwarranted.
