After Fairfax Media revealed details yesterday of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request showing the Budget’s adverse impact on lower income earners, Treasury Joe Hockey cracked a tantrum, accusing Fairfax of “malevolent attacks”. From The Australian:
Mr Hockey claimed Fairfax Media’s coverage of the Treasury analysis… failed to take account of the higher rate of income tax already paid by higher-income households, or the pensions and subsidies already paid overwhelmingly to low and middle-income families.
“The information as presented is deliberately misleading and it does not represent the true state of affairs,” Mr Hockey told the Nine Network…
[The] newspaper engages in misleading and deceptive information provisioned to the general public.
As expected, Fairfax has hit back hard today, accusing Hockey of failing to release more detailed Treasury modelling showing the impact of the Budget on different Australian household types:
Documents released under freedom-of-information legislation to Fairfax Media show the government delivered its budget fully aware its spending cuts would hit poorer households much harder than wealthier ones…
But two larger documents were withheld from the FOI request, one of 56 pages and the other of 21 pages. It is understood they show clearly how the less wealthy households would suffer far bigger falls in disposable income than richer ones, especially for families with children aged between six and 16.
A spokeswoman for Treasurer Joe Hockey said the documents would not be released because they were prepared for the cabinet and were therefore protected in the FOI process.
Respected economics correspondent, Peter Martin, has been particularly scathing, requesting that Hockey ‘put up or shut up’:
Malevolent? Treasurer Joe Hockey says Fairfax Media’s reporting of the budget has been sometimes ”quite malevolent”.
Fairfax has been trying to provide the public with what Hockey has not – a table that has been in each of the past nine budgets and was missing in this one…
It displays the changes in real household disposable incomes expected as a result of all of the budget measures taken together. It lists the results for up to 17 different family types, among them sole parents, single and double income couples, and couples with and without children.
It wasn’t in this year’s budget…
Hockey says this analysis ”does not represent the true state of affairs”. That seems unlikely, but if he wanted to back up his claims, he could make public the 56- and 21-page documents.
Meanwhile, opposition treasury spokesman, Chris Bowen, has taken full advantage of Hockey’s tantrum:
…shadow treasurer Chris Bowen slammed Mr Hockey on Monday for attacking the media for ”daring” to report on the data…
”These are Treasury figures. These aren’t Sydney Morning Herald’s figures, not the Labor Party’s figures – these are Treasury figures, which have been released under FOI”.
Attacking the media for merely doing their job is never a good look. It also signals that they have hit a raw nerve, inviting further scrutiny.
