ALP’s green double talk
THIS is a Budget engineered to get Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition back into the game.
Scott Morrison has used the document as a political weapon, taking a sniper’s aim at Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s strongholds.
Shorten outsmarted Turnbull across key battlegrounds in last year’s cliffhanger election.
He hurt Turnbull on “Mediscare”, the banks, education, housing affordability and the notion the PM was a rich guy who’d rather help billionaires than battlers. Morrison has fired a broadside at each of these beachheads.
He’s put a fence around Medicare, cutting doctors’ and kids’ dental bills.
He’s battered the banks with a $ 6.2 billion profit tax and given first- home buyers generous tax concessions.
Turnbull last week hijacked David Gonski from Labor.
Morrison has painted a rosy picture of our economic prospects, predicting “better days ahead”. In the meantime, our debt mounts.
Today we wake to our eighth successive Federal Budget deficit, a national debt of about $ 500 billion and a dubious path back to surplus.
Morrison has all but given up on the mantra of predecessor Joe Hockey, that we must live within our means and end the age of entitlement.
Of course, this mess is not of this Government’s making. Its seeds were planted during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, when a panicked Rudd Labor government splashed billions of cash to ward off what Treasury was warning was an almost certain recession.
The waste that ensued – pink batts, Building the Education Revolution and the back to school allowance – was as massive as it was unnecessary. The Coalition, faced with a hostile Senate and its own toxic leadership battles, has proved unable to rein in the spending.
Yet for all that, there was nothing special or new last night for Townsville. In that sense, it is business as usual. Our recovery has begun, but more than anything it is up to us – workers, businesses, students and volunteers – to continue to roll our sleeves up.
No amount of government largesse – as welcome and warranted as it would be – is going to achieve a fraction of what we as locals can when we apply our collective will to the task. MAYBE it was my upbringing but if someone asks me a question, I answer it straight … even if I know they’ll probably hate the answer.
I won’t promise quick fixes, I won’t offer easy solutions and I won’t say something in one electorate and something else in another.
Annastacia Palaszczuk has it all over me with the empty platitudes, fluffy photo ops and questiondodging.
But boy, governing.
Queensland is stagnating and politics is to blame.
It is clear Labor doesn’t support Adani and is turning a blind eye to the economies of regional Queensland.
Every week we see a different story trotted out.
When in Townsville, Mackay and Rocky, they are pro- Adani and job creation. When in Brisbane, chatting with their latte- sipping Greenie mates, they are against Adani.
Want to know why Labor does this? Well, there’s two reasons.
First, they believe those hardworking, blue collar workers in regional Queensland would never vote LNP so they are expendable. she is terrible at
Second, Queensland Labor runs its government by polling. Quite simply, the only jobs that interest Labor MPs are their own.
GetUp!’ s Adani poll last week is the most recent example.
GetUp! for a long time had Bill Shorten on its board.
If the polls tell Labor that they will lose inner- city Brisbane seats by supporting coal mines, we know what comes next.
We saw it with the lockout laws; Labor was hurting in Grace Grace’s Brisbane Central seat, home to the Fortitude Valley entertainment district, and lo and behold they canned their signature election promise.
The greatest risk Queenslanders face today is job insecurity. We lost more than 30,000 jobs last year alone.
Queensland’s economy is ranked below Tasmania – despite the advantages we enjoy in tourism, agriculture and resources.
Without a strong economy, governments can’t provide better services.
So when a project like Adani comes along, you should embrace it, not chastise it.
By waging an ideological war with coal, Labor is killing the economy.
Labor’s 50 per cent renewable energy target, to once again ap- pease Green groups by turning its back on coal- fired power, will mean higher prices and will put our state’s energy security at risk.
My LNP team and I won’t stand for it.
Renewables are an important part of the energy mix but you have to get the balance right.
For example, Labor is now conducting a hydro power generation study on the Burdekin Falls Dam. I believe it is worth looking into but in 2014 it didn’t stack up.
Yet Labor are now saying that if we build this hydro- electric station, Townsville’s water and energy needs will be fixed.
Labor’s claim is absolutely rubbish – we know this because Labor reads the same reports we do. But instead of a pragmatic decision, they play politics.
You can’t please everybody and you can’t say one thing in one location then say something different elsewhere.
The LNP is committed to leading a government that is better for Queensland.
I won’t please everyone. But I guarantee you this: I’ll make decisions and get things moving.
TIM NICHOLLS, Queensland LNP Leader.