MEDIA RELEASE: PORTER GETS IT WRONG ON $8.8 BILLION RBA PAYMENT

Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister Christian Porter today joined his colleague Joe Hockey in ignoring the facts and trashing Peter Costello’s Charter of Budget Honesty.

In an interview on Sky News Mr Porter claimed the Abbott Government had “inherited” from Labor an $8.8 billion payment to the Reserve Bank.

This is just plain wrong.

The decision to give $8.8 billion to the RBA was made by Joe Hockey in the 2013-14 Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, released three months after the election; the same document in which the Treasurer doubled the deficit adding $68 billion.

The Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook is the true state of Labor's books as independently verified by the public service under Peter Costello’s Charter of Budget Honesty.

Mr Porter, a former state Treasurer, should be able to understand who made what decisions and when.

It’s about time this Government started taking responsibility for its own actions.