The head of the peak body representing accountants has blasted the Abbott government for a lack of consultation and expressed scepticism that his organisation was excluded from next month's budget lock-up due to an accidental administrative error.
Alex Malley, the chief executive of Certified Practising Accountants, unloaded on Treasurer Joe Hockey on Thursday, suggesting that the "immature" decision not to invite the CPA into the budget lock-up for the first time in its history was payback for criticising the government.
"We're in the naughty corner it appears," Mr Malley told the ABC on Thursday morning.
"We are the peak body of accounting and finance in Australia, we have 155,000 members, we are among the 10 largest in the world, it's like having a medical convention and not inviting the surgeons ... we have been very strong in all forms of communication without fear or favour in relation to issues that matter to the economy and I think you can link this decision, this immature decision by Treasury, to those very principles."
A spokeswoman for Mr Hockey said the CPA had been inadvertently put on an incorrect list and would be invited into the lock-up.
"My understanding is they are being sent a personal apology and invitation this morning," the spokeswoman said. "I can assure you it was not intentional."
Being included in the budget lock-up allows lobby groups to read the budget papers at the same time as journalists and provide immediate reaction for that evening's television and other news and the following day's newspapers.
Mr Malley told Fairfax Media: "I personally struggle to accept this was an administrative error given we have been in the budget lock-up for as long as it has existed. I find it highly coincidental."
Mr Malley said there had been an "unprecedented" lack of consultation from the Treasurer's office.
"We have never known in 129 years of our history the lack of consultation we are seeing now," he said.
"[W]e have had no consultation as the peak financial body of any substance in 18 months when we have got the crisis around taxation, we have got the crisis around competition and we have very cleanly and very obviously talked to those issues and we're happy to have a dialogue.
"There's a fear about dialogue with this Treasury currently."
Last year, three unions - the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Community and Public Sector Union and the Australian Services Union - complained when they were excluded from the budget lock-up.
