BUDGET RESPONSE SUMMARY
No longer the low-tax state
The Premier and her Treasurer keep saying that this is a tough Budget. And it certainly is a budget that’s tough on all Queenslanders, who will be paying more every time they turn on a tap, flick on the lights, fill up their car, or go to the supermarket.
The days of Queensland being the low-tax, lifestyle capital of Australia are now under serious threat by Labor.
This budget sets out in tragic detail Queensland’s economic decline under 11 years of Labor.
While Queensland was once the nation’s economic powerhouse, today the Sunshine State is being eclipsed by a budget black hole that condemns Queensland to a decade of debt.
For ten years Queensland experienced the biggest boom in its 150 year history, times were never this good.
But there is now nothing to show for a decade of boom other than a looming decade of debt and deficits.
How can this Government be trusted to steer us through tough times when they can’t be trusted to manage things in good times?
Debt and Deficit
The Premier must take responsibility for the pain in this budget and Queensland’s alarming debt levels.
Throughout the 1990s, Queensland’s balance sheet was the strongest in the country. Then under Treasurer Bligh, the rot began to set in as she led the charge in borrowing excessively and losing control of expenditure.
Systematically over the past 5 years, Labor’s economic vandals have undermined and dismantled one of the strongest economies in the country – once the envy of other states – and turned it into the weakest.
They dismantled our fully funded superannuation funds.
Labor stripped unsustainable dividends out of Government Owned Corporations like Energex and Ergon, destroying their ability to invest properly in maintaining their infrastructure and keep consumer prices down.
This incompetent Treasurer has dealt Queensland $85.5 billion worth of debt.
It costs Queensland taxpayers $14 million a day, every day, to just pay the interest bill on this $85.5 billion of debt.
Queensland needs to be aware that between them, the Premier and Treasurer racked up $64 billion worth of debt before the Global Financial Crisis was even heard of.
Because of this, Queensland was completely unprepared for the crisis which how we ended up in this position today
Financial mismanagement
While all of the other states are in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis, Queensland is the only state to have lost its AAA credit rating. The Premier cannot blame the global financial crisis for her Governments lack of fiscal responsibility.
The Government has admitted that restoring Queensland’s AAA credit rating is not even a priority for the Bligh Government and may take 10 years to get back.
The reality of the loss of Queensland’s AAA credit rating costs Queenslanders an extra $1.2 billion in interest repayments per annum – enough to build a new children’s hospital once a year, every year, instead of just once in a lifetime.
Only one side of politics in this state committed to delivering low taxes and easing the burden on families and businesses – and that’s the Liberal National Party.
Unemployment and our shaky future
It is notable that Labor’s Budget delivers unemployment of 7¼ per cent through until 2011. 175,000 Queenslanders will be out of work and facing enormous financial stress within the next two years. The Treasurer’s own electorate of Mt Coot-tha has been one of the areas worst hit by unemployment.
I am deeply concerned that often the people who suffer the most during times of economic downturn are young people. During the recession of the early 90s, youth unemployment in Queensland was unacceptably high, rising by almost 20 per cent. Sadly, in the current downturn a high portion of the unemployed will be young people aged between 15 and 25 years.
At the start of their working lives, today’s young people may struggle to find a job, and they may struggle to keep a job.
Apart from the obvious financial difficulties, youth unemployment has a far wider impact on society. Research suggests that an entire generation can become disaffected by poor employment prospects and a lack of job security. The research also suggests there may be a link between long-term youth unemployment and mental health, crime and suicide.
Education
Our children will shoulder the unfair burden of the financial cost of Labor’s neglect and mismanagement, with higher taxes and costs of living from Labor’s debt.
The government has a duty to children and their families to provide an education system that allows our kids to achieve academically and develop socially in a safe learning environment.
The Bligh Government has failed on both counts.
Queensland trails behind every other Australian state in literacy, numeracy, science and technology.
We have the highest rates of school bullying.
We have one of the lowest rates of teacher retention.
Our kids are being taught in crumbling classrooms as the Government stalls on fixing the long-overdue $100 million backlog in school maintenance.
In 2009, there are still some Queensland schools are ridden with deadly asbestos.
The Queensland Education Performance Review by Professor Geoff Masters warned that the long-term effect of poor literacy and numeracy in primary school was “poorer outcomes as adults in areas such as employment, lifetime earnings, health and crime.”
I do not believe this budget goes far enough in addressing the serious challenges teachers and students are facing.
A Liberal National Party government would put restoring confidence in our schools at the front and centre of our plan to rebuild Queensland. Education is something that, if we get it right today, will improve society long into the future.
Health
Something this government looks like it will never get right is fixing Queensland’s public hospital system. Labor’s ad hoc approach to health service planning has resulted in a system where Queensland has fewer real hospital beds than it did a decade ago, despite a massive spike in population and increasing demand.
Despite substantial increases to funding – over $700 million this year, bringing the total health budget to over $9 billion – there has been no corresponding improvement in waiting lists.
33,993 sick Queenslanders are still languishing on waiting lists across the state because of “fundamental weaknesses” in the Bligh Government’s approach to health services. That doesn’t even take into account the 180,582 Queenslanders waiting to get on the waiting list.
Unless the Bligh Government addresses the issues raised by the Auditor-General, this budget is condemned to the same fate as previous health budgets.
One of the most disturbing aspects of this budget is this government’s approach to regional health services. The Bligh Government still hasn’t addressed the issue of unsafe staff accommodation, despite the fact a young nurse was raped in government-supplied housing in the Torres Strait last year.
The Health Minister stood in this house and promised he would personally ensure the problems were fixed and that this tragedy would never happen again.
Yet we see in the budget papers that the Queensland Health regional accommodation program was under-spent by $4.8 million, while not one cent of the $1.3 million Cape York Staff Accommodation project at Kowanyama was spent this financial year. This is completely unacceptable.
Agriculture
No government has done more to demonise agriculture and farmers than this Labor government.
No government has burdened farmers with red tape, regulations and taxes than this Government. What the Bligh Government doesn’t understand is farmers are businessmen. Through their farms, these businessmen provide economic prosperity and employment to entire towns.
This budget delivers even more cuts to Primary Industries and Fisheries. Service delivery will be cut significantly as a result of the Bligh Government’s smash-and-grab approach to agriculture. The Primary Industries budget has been slashed by 23 per cent, which equates to $25 million.
Fuel Tax
Effectively, ordinary Queenslanders will slugged twice with the fuel tax – once at the bowser and again at the checkout. The price of fruit and veges will be the first to go up, and regional Queensland will undoubtedly be hit particularly hard by rising fuel prices.
Sale of public assets
This unnecessary fire sale of profitable public assets is driven not by good economic policy, but by economic desperation.
The only reason Labor is selling these profitable public assets is to fill the massive black hole they have put in the state balance sheet.
Selling the profitable public assets at the worst time, when you will get the worst price at the bottom of the market simply doesn’t make much sense.
It’s like selling your house at the bottom of the property market to pay off your maxed out credit card.
The Premier is now prepared to kick Queenslanders when they are down
Tourism
This budget will not only cost Queenslanders at a time when they can least afford it, this budget also threatens Queensland’s ability to claw its way out of the quagmire the Premier and Treasurer has put us in.
The Bligh Government has ripped more than $5.5 million worth of funding out of Tourism Queensland’s budget.
This is despite the fact tourism employs 120,000 Queenslanders. After a decade of long-term Labor Government, tourism has stagnated in regions like the Gold Coast, with a 7.8 per cent drop in tourist numbers last year alone.
If the Bligh Government had the discipline keep their spending in line with revenue, this budget could have easily seen more money invested in bringing tourists back to Queensland.
This would have injected much-needed tourism dollars into local economies like the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and Cairns, which rely so heavily on tourism.
Liars and Thieves
This year Queensland celebrates its 150th birthday, but many Queenslanders are feeling short-changed when after a decade of boom times they see their government paying $14 million a day in interest to pay for over $85 billion of debt.
In 1859, Queensland Treasury had nine pence in the bank, which in this day and age is equivalent to about 15 cents. Nine pence was modest even by colonial standards.
Today we can only hope for a 15-cent surplus under the Bligh/Fraser government. The Bligh Government is pick-pocketing Queenslanders in every way possible.
This budget tells the tale of Labor’s 11 year record of mismanagement, failure and squandered opportunity.
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