Both major parties contesting the Northern Territory election on Saturday are yet to release fully analysed costings of their campaign and other commitments. The governing Country Liberal party released its costings on Tuesday afternoon – past their own deadline of Monday but well before Labor’s release, planned for Thursday. The CLP has claimed its costings would see a positive balance of $35.78m over three years from 2018-18 and said its analysis of Labor’s commitments had found a debt of $523.51m over the same period. However, the CLP costings have not yet been assessed by Treasury, meaning voters will receive fully analysed data from both parties at about the same time. The deputy chief minister, Peter Styles, said he hoped Treasury would return the CLP costings soon.
The CLP figures show a $21.95m debt created by capital expenditure over the three years, with the largest amount of $150m going towards a remote housing strategy.
The CLP has promised 2300 new houses for remote Indigenous communities and another 100 upgrades. In December Labor released a 10-year, $1.1bn policy for new housing and has since matched the CLP’s promise for more than 1,000 new builds by 2017/18 using federal money allocated for that purpose.
Despite resisting its establishment for a number of years, the CLP has since committed to creating a Northern Territory independent commission against corruption (Icac). Its costings have allocated $5m a year over three years, compared with the $3m a year promised by Labor.
Full Article: Northern Territory election: voters forced to wait for fully analysed costings | Australia news | The Guardian.