The coalition says its election policy costings are the most prudent of an opposition in Australian history. The former head of the prime minister's department Peter Shergold, former Queensland auditor-general Len Scanlan and co-founder of Access Economics Geoff Carmody are being paid for their efforts. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott told reporters in Perth on Saturday the coalition could not come up with a better panel of professionals to run their rulers over the policy costings. "I think we can say without any fear of contradiction ... that no opposition in Australia's history has been as careful or as prudent with its costings as this opposition going into the election," he said. But Treasurer Chris Bowen again accused his election rivals of using every trick in the book to hide budget cuts. Three handpicked men "are no substitute for being transparent with the Australian people." "This is a fig leaf," he said. He accused the coalition of trying to dodge scrutiny by "creating a random process" to avoid complying with the Charter of Budget Honesty which former Treasurer Peter Costello established. At the last election the coalition used an accountancy firm to conduct their costings, which were later found to be out by $11 billion. Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey said the coalition's costings would be released in a timely manner. "If we released all our policies on one day, I'm sure we wouldn't get the proper scrutiny and analysis from our good friends in the media," he told reporters in Sydney. I think we'll do what's in the best interest of the Australian people. We're not going to release policy costings before we announce the policies, that's just ridiculous. Mr Bowen said the coalition's argument about timing of their costings release was "nonsense." "The Liberal Party could do what the Labor government has done and release costings and funding as each policy is released," he told reporters in Sydney. (They) don't want to be upfront with the Australian people about what they will cut. Mr Abbott said he would tackle Labor's waste. "I don't run away from the fact that there will be significant savings," he said. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd went on the attack as well, saying Mr Abbott has a new three-word slogan, "Cut, cut and cut again."