@am*3 wrote:Labor releases final costings, upping pressure on Coalition to follow suit
LABOR has stripped more than $1.65 billion from federal government departments to fund its election promises, updated election costings reveal.
The cuts include $111 million from TAFE colleges, even though Kevin Rudd, at his campaign launch on Sunday, blasted Coalition states for removing funding from the vocational college system.
Treasurer Chris Bowen released Labor's costings today, demanding the Coalition do likewise.
But the list was incomplete, with Treasury yet to sign off on 36 of 66 submitted policies.
Tony Abbott, who is yet to release his costings, said a further 13 Labor policies announced in recent days had not even been submitted to the Treasury.........
“This is more demonstration of what a complete shambles this government is,” he said.
Labor's promises are said to be fully offset by savings - listed as “redirections from uncommitted funds”.
They include $253 million to be recouped from the Department of Education , Employment and Workplace Relations; $169m from Defence; $274m from the Department of Health and Ageing; $278m from the Department of Regional Australia, Local Government and Sport; and $200m from Treasury.
In many cases, there is no detail of precisely where the savings will be found, with the cost of initiatives to be “absorbed” by the relevant department.
The Prime Minister, who has campaigned heavily on the “cuts” planned by the Coalition, said on Sunday he would “not stand idly by” and watch the states slash TAFE funding.
But Labor's costings reveal it has redirected money from the TAFE sector to help pay for its $200 million instant asset write-off commitment for small businesses.
“This is money that had been allocated, in a broad sense, but not yet allocated to individual TAFEs,” Mr Bowen told Sky News today.
“We took the decision to offset what we think is a very important initiative for small business.”
............Mr Bowen said Mr Abbott, who is due to release his costings tomorrow, had gone to “extraordinary lengths” to avoid scrutiny.
“We need to see a clear impact of their policies, and importantly, what are the cuts they will make?” he said.
“We already know some of the cuts, but we don't know all of them.”
The Opposition Leader announced his final election commitment today, promising his final costings would be released “very, very soon”.
There you go... I put the bit you cut out back in and did it in red text... just in case you didn't realise you forgot to put it all in and to make sure that people could see how I edited your post.
I also decided to edit my post and make it bold and underlined... 
