Labor deeper into the red as the commitments pile up

The Liberal Party’s overhauled Paid Parental Leave scheme has sent it well into the lead in the campaign commitments race but it still has plenty of wriggle room for spending commitments.

Its new PPL scheme, starting a year later and with a lower PPL levy, will end up costing taxpayers half a billion dollars over four years (click on the table below to see a full, detailed list of Liberal promises).

Labor, however, is now nearly a billion dollars in the red on its commitments after its $670m electoral bribe to Family Tax Benefit A recipients on Monday, which was followed up by another $50+m this morning in handouts (click through for a full list of Labor commitments).

Labor continues to insist its commitments will be “full offset” but it appears to have abandoned identifying where offsets will be found.

Earlier this week, it offered up a further $360m in savings, but these were made up of a special dividend from Medibank Private and $60m worth of cuts to Government advertising. The Coalition, too, claimed it would be able to achieve big savings in Government advertising after the election.

They’re both lying — watch for advertising to continue as normal under either party once they’re safely back in office.

Crikey will be regularly updating the two major parties’ spending commitments throughout the campaign here and here.