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Treasury advice  By Ross Gittins April 5, 2004  Printer friendly
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Have you noticed? In his zeal to prove the Opposition's alleged
economic incompetence, Peter Costello is actually convicting
Labor on a different but irrefutable charge: the crime of not
being in government.  In other words, he's exploiting the huge
advantages of incumbency to demonstrate that Labor enjoys no
such advantages. If to your mind that doesn't seem to prove
much, you're right - it doesn't. But it's the best Mr Costello
can manage in panicky times.  The classic case of this strange
technique came last week when Mark Latham announced Labor's
policy of introducing a new baby care payment. The $2.2 billion
cost of this promise over four years would be covered partly by
phasing out the Government's widely criticised baby bonus.  How
did Labor know how much would