Labor's boat fiddle. UPDATE And financial ones A fortnight after last year's Budget, it was already clear the Gillard Government's estimate of the cost of boat people had been wildly underestimated - probably deliberately so: [ABC host Fran] Kelly: Kim Beazley agreed. The Opposition doesn't agree that your policy is a good policy. And just to stick with the implications of this, at least on the Budget, I mean, in Senate Estimates yesterday the Acting Secretary of the Immigration Department, Martin Bowles, said the department's budget is based on estimates of around 450 asylum seekers arriving each month. [Immigration Minister Chris] Bowen: Arrivals is part of the equation, Fran, it's part of the many things which get put into the computer in terms of - Kelly: But clearly, it's going to blow out on arrivals, that's my point. Bowen: Well, Fran, a number of factors go to determining the irregular maritime arrivals budget, a number of factors. Arrivals is one; the 450 figure is based on historical averages. Reader Gab counts the latest arrivals to see if we're running at the budgeted 450 arrivals a month: Boat arrivals for April to date: 2289 "asylum" seekers and 32 boats. Reports are now spread between Home Affairs and Customs. And April still with more than a week to go. More fiddling with figures to produce a convenient figure. Henry Ergas on this most deceitful of governments: ...serious questions now also arising about the Gonski report's modelling... Ever since the government linked its Emissions Trading Scheme to the European carbon market, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has defended the budget's estimate of a $29 per tonne carbon price in 2015-16 as a "Treasury forecast on which the government is entitled to rely." However, Combet has not provided any information supporting that "forecast," instead pointing to Treasury's carbon tax modelling. But contrary to Combet's assertions, that modelling does not "forecast" a $29 price in 2015-16. Rather, it calculates that $29 price as the lowest global carbon price in 2015-16 that would be consistent with the government's aspirations for cutting emissions. The $29 figure was therefore not a prediction of likely prices in 2015-16; it was merely the minimum price needed for deep global emissions reductions to occur. Unfortunately, Treasury has never set the record straight, instead allowing Combet to repeatedly mislead the public. And as the model and data Treasury used have not been released, it has been impossible to test the impacts of much lower world prices on Treasury's conclusions. Release the models! Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Heights.