In a newspaper article that appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald on 25 March 2013 (written by Ross Gittins and entitled ‘Both sides must end budget dishonesty’), the following comments were made in relation to the Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan:

Credibility will be attained only if, unlike the past two or three budgets, this one involves no resort to creative accounting: no shifting of spending from the budget year back to the previous, almost-ended year, no use of Swan’s ‘fiscal bulldozer’ to push spending commitments off beyond the forward estimates where they can’t be seen, and no exploitation of loopholes in the definition of the underlying cash balance, including funding spending on the national broadband network off-budget.
The above sentiment was also reflected in an article that appeared in The Australian Financial Review on 9 March 2013 (written by Geoff Winestock and entitled ‘Swan in a budget bind’):
Swan has resorted to the silliest fudges. He has, the Business Council of Australia says, made optimistic revenue assumptions, fiddled with minor programs and, above all else, he has shuffled spending and revenue forward and back between time periods to achieve cosmetic results.
Required: Explain whether the insights provided by PAT can also be used to explain government action—such as the above actions allegedly undertaken by Wayne Swan, who was Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party as well as Australian Treasurer in 2013.