Promise Tracker: How does the Coalition's record stack up as the nation heads to a new election?

Updated

The Coalition took a long list of promises to the 2013 election.

Whether they were contained in policy documents or, memorably, pitched by then opposition leader Tony Abbott on SBS the night before the election, ABC Fact Check sought to track a range of promises — 78 to be exact — which captured a wide variety of policy areas, not to mention geographical locations.

Mr Abbott set a high standard when it comes to keeping pledges.

In 2011 he said: "It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards."

On September 14, 2015, Mr Abbott lost a leadership ballot to Malcolm Turnbull, but as there had been no popular election, Fact Check considered that the 2013 promises stood and continued to track them.

On May 8, 2016, Mr Turnbull used the Senate's blocking of the bill to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission, a key promise made by Mr Abbott, as a trigger to call a double dissolution election, putting the Government into caretaker mode.

Check the tally below to see the promises that the Coalition kept, and those that fell short of the mark, and read on about some of the challenges Fact Check faced in assessing them.

The tally

Thirty delivered, 19 broken, 21 in progress and 8 stalled — that's the final tally for the end of the Coalition's term.

The status of each promise was carefully considered as events unfolded over the election cycle.

"Delivered" and "broken" promises have either met or fallen short of the criteria defined within the original promise, or where necessary, developed by Fact Check for this project.

Some promises were left as "in progress". These generally have timelines or other circumstances which extend beyond the election and are on track to completion, and therefore cannot be ticked or crossed.

The final category is "stalled". This status can reflect the will of the Coalition to achieve a promise which has been thwarted by extenuating circumstances.

A good example of this is the Coalition's promise to invest $16m towards upgrading Hobart's Cadbury factory, which was stalled when Cadbury decided its own contribution to the upgrade would not be worthwhile and so withdrew its application for federal funding, despite the Coalition's willingness to provide it.

A "stalled" status can also reflect a promise whose deadline is beyond the election, but is unlikely to be met, as in the case of the complete the NBN by 2019 promise.

As relevant events occurred, each promise was updated so that readers could track a path to its final determination.

Sometimes Fact Check continued to publish updates even after a pledge was assessed as "broken" when it appeared that it could be broken afresh in a new way.

This occurred in relation to the no unexpected adverse changes to superannuation promise, when the Government flagged potential changes to superannuation tax concessions 12 months after legislating a four-year delay in increasing employer superannuation contributions to 12 per cent.

And of course, the Coalition's promise to amend Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) legislation went from "in progress", to "delivered", to "stalled", to "delivered" again, to "stalled" yet again, all in a matter of months, as the Government attempted to steer its reforms through a hostile Senate by introducing changes via regulation and negotiating with crossbench Senators, only to have the regulations disallowed when some members of the crossbench reversed their stance.

Some determinations were easy to make — for example, the passing of legislation to abolish the carbon tax and the mining tax meant their status as "delivered" was clear-cut.

Likewise, when the Government legislated its temporary debt levy, its "no tax increases" pledge was unequivocally abandoned.

Mr Abbott's oft-repeated promise to "stop the boats" was ticked off the to-do list when the Coalition met its stated goal of less than three boat arrivals in a year — the Howard era record.

But there were other promises that weren't as straightforward, and required careful analysis to determine their final status.

Status anxiety

Each promise has its own set of criteria to be delivered or broken, which Fact Check based on what the Coalition said and wrote in policy documents before the election, and how this would be interpreted by the common voter.

A great deal of the time, deciding to leave the status of a promise as "in progress" was significantly more difficult than simply changing its status.

A dilemma soon after the 2013 election was how to treat the promise to deliver minimum broadband speeds of 25-100 mbps by 2016 and 50-100 mbps by 2019 when NBN Co published a strategic review forecasting that the first of these goals would not be reached and Mr Turnbull, in his role at the time as communications minister, told Parliament the Government accepted the "disappointing" forecast.

But, as is the case with many promises, it is impossible to write something off in 2013 that has a deadline of 2016. It was only when the election was called, and the opinions of experts were sought on a final determination, that Fact Check considered the promise "broken".

When Mr Turnbull called the election on May 8, it was clear that even if the Coalition was re-elected, the December 2016 target was out of reach due to the sheer number of premises that NBN Co would need to pass to deliver access to minimum speeds to all premises.

Likewise, the decision to change the status of the Coalition's promise to build Australia's new submarine fleet in Adelaide to "delivered" was fraught.

The actual completion of all 12 submarines is a task that will take decades, and likely, the terms of several governments of different stripes.

Thus, setting the parameters for fulfilling the promise far into the future would not have been a worthwhile exercise for those it would affect — what they really wanted to know was, would the Coalition generate jobs and work for local businesses by building the submarines in Adelaide?

In this way, the promise was considered to be much like the Coalition's promise to decide on a site for a second Sydney airport — once the announcement was made on the site for the airport, it was considered "delivered".

In the same manner, once the Coalition had chosen the French bid for the submarines contract ahead of the Japanese and German ones, and unequivocal statements given about construction in Adelaide, the promise was considered to have been honoured.

Some readers suggested this promise should have been treated as Fact Check has treated the no change to pensions promise.

In June 2015, the Government legislated an increase to the assets test free areas of the pension, and the taper rate by which the pension is reduced once the free area is exceeded.

Fact Check determined that this would constitute a change to the pension, but the legislated reforms will not take effect until 2017 — well into the next electoral term — so it was left "in progress" (and now that the election has been called is "delivered"), as the electorate has the opportunity to consider this change at the 2016 election and vote accordingly.

Thwarted or stalled?

The restrictive nature of the four categories Fact Check chose for its promise tracker became more and more apparent over the electoral cycle.

There were some promises that could not be considered "delivered" or "broken", but which weren't entirely well-served by the categories of "in progress" or "stalled".

This occurred in situations where the Government's intention and will to deliver a promise was abundantly clear, but it was prevented by extenuating circumstances.

On these occasions, "stalled" was used as a proxy for a pledge thwarted.

A good example was the Coalition's promise to invest $1.5 billion in Melbourne's East West Link.

The Government's enthusiasm for funding this project was so great that it broke its promise to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for all $100 million-plus infrastructure projects when it allocated $1 billion to the project in the 2014-15 budget.

But when Labor came to office in Victoria later in 2014, it scrapped the project, in line with its own election promise.

The Coalition's promise couldn't have been "broken" after the Victorian election, as the Coalition had allocated the funds and remained committed to spending them on the project.

A status of "in progress" would have implied that there was still hope that the promise would be made good, but the Victorian Government was very clear in its opposition.

Thus, the only fitting category was "stalled", as events had moved out of the Coalition's control.

A lesson learned for the next promise tracker — perhaps a fifth category of "thwarted" might be appropriate?

Delivered, in spite of itself

Curiously, there was one promise which the Government seemed determined to break, but ended up honouring in spite of its efforts.

The promise to ensure the continuation of current university funding arrangements was declared "stalled" when the Government announced changes to university and higher education funding on budget night, 2014.

The Coalition tried repeatedly to pass the bill, but it was twice frustrated by the Senate.

Had the legislation passed, the promise would have been written off, but the status was changed to "in progress" when the Government shelved its higher education reform agenda until after the election.

The Coalition has since delayed any potential reform by another year, and when the election was called, the status advanced to "delivered".

University funding arrangements continued throughout the term, in spite of the Government's own attempts to change them.

Not all promises are equal

Whilst the tally is a useful at-a-glance measure of the Government's record, the university funding example demonstrates each promise must also be considered on its own merits.

Three key things must be kept in mind when considering the outcome of the promise tracker:

A delivered promise can be perceived as negative depending on the audience, just as a broken promise could be seen as a positive

ABC Fact Check was unable to track every single promise that the Coalition made before the election

Some promises mean more to some individual voters or groups, depending on their circumstances, interests and even locations

The Government's promise to provide $700 million for the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing, for example, may mean little to voters outside that area, but could be critical to voters within it.

There are some promises that are by contrast, of critical importance to all Australians, such as no cuts to health and no cuts to education.

Spending related to both of these promises was analysed carefully in relation to CPI and population growth, and Fact Check found that spending had increased, so they were both deemed "delivered" at the end of the electoral term.

Labor accused the Coalition of making $80 billion worth of cuts — $50 billion to health and $30 billion to education — in the 2014-15 budget, but Fact Check found that these "savings", as the Government called them, were on projected figures over 10 years made by Labor, and that there is too much uncertainty for this long-term estimate to be used as a reliable measure for cuts or savings.

The changes were not scheduled to begin until July 2017 in the case of health and January 2018 for education, and the verdict on the debate was deemed hot air.

Just as voters can take the legislated changes to pensions into account in the polling booths on July 2, they can also consider the Coalition's future plans for funding schools and hospitals.

Some promises are also more infamous than others.

On the eve of the 2013 election, then opposition leader Tony Abbott told SBS there would be "no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS."

These promises were widely reported, and when Mr Abbott broke the latter two in the May 2014 budget there was a prolonged backlash, as he acknowledged seven months later.

"Now, on the subject of broken promises, I accept that what we are doing with the ABC is at odds with what I said immediately prior to the election but things have moved on, circumstances are different," he told a media conference.

"Going into that election, the then government was telling us the deficit for that year would be $18 billion; it turned out to be $48 billion. I think sensible governments are not only entitled but, indeed, expected to change when the circumstances change."

That decision will be critical to the continuation of services like this promise tracker.

With the aid of its monitoring of 78 promises over the past three years, voters can now decide whether they agree with Mr Abbott's principle that governments must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards, or whether they expect governments to change with the circumstances.

Topics: federal-elections, liberals, nationals, australia

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