2022 General election
Guidance materials
In preparation for the 2022 General election, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) will be issuing a number of guidance materials to support parliamentary parties, Senators and Members.
Topics will include the PBO's approach to caretaker costings and arrangements for the PBO's report of election commitments.
- PBO general election guidance 1 of 4, 2021
How minor parties and independents can opt in to the PBO's election commitments report
(372 KB) 
(731 KB)
Release date: 13 July 2021
- PBO general election guidance 2 of 4, 2021
The election commitments report: overview
(402 KB) 
(768 KB)
Release date: 18 August 2021
- PBO general election guidance 3 of 4, 2021
Costing policy proposals during the caretaker period
(396 KB) (745 KB)
Release date: 18 August 2021
- PBO general election guidance 4 of 4, 2022
2022 PBO election commitments report
(325 KB) (1.57 MB)
Release date: 11 April 2022
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 2022 Caretaker costings page.
During the caretaker period, to submit a request for a caretaker costing, use the Caretaker Costing Request template.
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 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.
Parliamentary party lists of election commitments
The PBO is required to publish lists of election commitments for all major parliamentary parties after each general election. Major parties are parties with five or more members of parliament before the commencement of the caretaker period.
Each major party must provide a list of their election commitments to the Parliamentary Budget Officer by 5pm (AEST) on the day before polling day. Minor parties and independent parliamentarians wishing to opt into the Election Commitments Report must also meet this requirement.
The following lists of commitments for the 2022 election were provided to the Parliamentary Budget Officer prior to the legislated deadline of 5pm Friday, 20 May 2022. Lists are as provided by the parties and have not been altered by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Australian Greens (133 KB)
Australian Labor Party1 (58 KB)
The Coalition (424 KB)
Independent member for Indi (146 KB)
The PBO takes into account the information provided by the parties as well as public announcements made by the parties when preparing the final lists of election commitments which are used in preparing the Election Commitments Report.
1. Updated 31 May 2022 to focus on the costings tables. No changes have been made to those tables.
Election Commitments Report
The PBO released the 2022 Election commitments report (including election commitment costings) on 14 July 2022.
Within 30 days after the end of the caretaker period for a general election, or 7 days before the first sitting of Parliament, the PBO publishes a report that presents the budget impacts of each of the election commitments of the major parliamentary parties, including their aggregate impact on the fiscal position.
Minor parties may choose to opt in to have their election commitments included in an addendum to this report. The opt in arrangements and implications for minor parties and independents are detailed in the Guidance document: How minor parties and independents can opt in to the PBO’s election commitments report.