An Independent Commission of Budget Integrity

The Business Council of Australia has included a report by Stephen Bartos making the case for an independent Commission of Budget Integrity in its pre-Budget submission to the government. Bartos references a similar proposal by Robert Carling and I on the subject, as well as earlier work by Nic Gruen, which drew on a 1996 proposal by Larry Ball when Larry was visiting the RBNZ.

The report does something we did not do, which is to cost the proposal. Bartos puts a 30-40 member commission with two executives and a board at $10m a year. To put this in perspective, it is less than the extra $15m the ABS wants to increase the frequency of the CPI from a quarterly to monthly release.