Guidance materials

In preparation for the next general election, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has issued a number of guidance materials to support parliamentary parties, Senators and Members.

Caretaker period costings

During the caretaker period for a general election, parliamentary parties and independent parliamentarians can request costings of their publicly announced election policies. The PBO publish these requests, complete the analysis and publicly release the costing responses as soon as possible, as per our legislation. Completed caretaker costing requests are available on our 2025 Caretaker costings page.

During the caretaker period, to submit a request for a caretaker costing, use the Caretaker Costing Request template [Download Word 69 KB].

The Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998 outlines arrangements under which the Secretaries of the Treasury and the Department of Finance (Finance) may be requested to cost election commitments during the caretaker period for a general election. Caretaker costings completed by Treasury and Finance are available at www.electioncostings.gov.au.

Costing responses from the PBO will be prepared in a manner consistent with the costing conventions in the Charter of Budget Honesty – Policy Costing Guidelines.

For further information about these arrangements refer to PBO general election guidance 3: Costing policy proposals during the caretaker period [Download PDF 313 KB].

Supporting information

How to make a request during election caretaker periods

Parliamentarian requests for policy costings and our responses are published during a caretaker period for a general election.

PBO Seminar: PBO and the next general election

In this seminar we explored PBO's role during the eclection and how we support parliamentary parties, Senators and Members.

 

If you have suggestions about what would be useful content for the Election commitments report, please email the team at feedback@pbo.gov.au.