Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of election promises may not be scrutinised by ACT Treasury before voting closes.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Both Labor and the Liberals have yet to submit, or have only just submitted, for Treasury costing a huge selection of key policies they have brought to the election.
ACT Treasury will stop releasing costings from 5pm Thursday. There is generally a five-day turnaround period once a policy is submitted.
Labor's flagship election promises, including its pledge to build five new nurse-led walk-in centres and its $100 million battery network, did not appear to have been submitted to Treasury as of Wednesday afternoon. However a spokeswoman said both had been submitted that morning.
The Liberals are yet to submit key promises worth hundreds of millions a year, including their plan to freeze residential rates for four years, expand Canberra Hospital's expansion project, and halve elective surgery wait times.
Mr Coe was asked when the costings for key policies would be submitted, but he did not directly answer.
"We have already submitted dozens of policies to Treasury for costing; there are more that are going to be submitted," he said.
"I've already made it very clear what the costs are and we'll continue to submit policies to Treasury as we have been doing.
"We've submitted more costings than our opponents who have had access to Treasury for 19 years."
Treasury's guidelines said its Thursday cut-off time for the release of costings would allow time for them to be publicly scrutinised.
"The general public, media and candidates require adequate time to review the election commitment costings before polling day so as to make informed decisions," it read.
While its guidelines say the costings should take five working days, many completed policies appear to have taken significantly longer.
Campaign nears its end
In the closing days of the election campaign, Chief Minister Andrew Barr headed to Tidbinbilla to announce funds to upgrade the visitors centre.
Mr Coe was in Tuggeranong spruiking the party's previously announced cost-of-living pledges and promises for the region.
More than half of all registered voters have already voted in the election, to be decided on Saturday.
A record 161,953 Canberrans had already cast their vote at an early voting centre or applied for a postal vote as of close of business Tuesday.
ACT electoral commissioner Damian Cantwell said he was expecting up to 70 per cent of ACT residents to have voted before Saturday.
"The spread of voter turnout we're seeing over the full three-week period is exactly what we've planned as part of COVID safety arrangements in place for this election," he said.
There will be 82 voting locations available across Canberra for those who will be casting their vote on Saturday.
The 15 voting centre locations that have been operating throughout the early voting period will continue to be open on Saturday and will continue to provide both electronic and paper-based voting services.
All other voting locations on Saturday will be offering paper ballots.
"The COVID safety arrangements that have been in place at early voting centres throughout the entire early voting period will also be implemented at all voting centres on Saturday," Mr Cantwell said.