Premier's Message

[Fares_Fair]

Today is the first full day of Queensland Parliament and the Newman Government has got straight to work on delivering its election promise to ease the cost of living for Queensland families.

The Cost of Living Bill will be one of the first introduced to Parliament under the new LNP Government and honours the commitment that we would do everything possible to ease financial pressure on families.

The LNP's cost of living commitments include:

Freezing or lowering the standard domestic electricity tariff (Tariff 11) saving families an average of $120 this year; Freezing family car registration for the first term of an LNP Government; Halving the next two scheduled increases in public transport fares and implementing a new weekly nine journey cap on go cards for South East Queensland commuters; and Reintroducing stamp duty concessions for the principal place of residence saving up to $7,000.

The Newman Government is also moving on legislation for savings to water bills and will be abolishing the waste levy on July 1.

These changes will meet our election commitment to save average households up to $330 per annum.

The Cost of Living Bill also delivers significant savings for businesses. The new legislation will increase the exemption threshold for businesses paying payroll tax from $1 million to $1.1 million from 1 July 2012, the first incremental threshold increase to meet the LNP's long-term policy to increase the threshold for payroll tax to $1.6 million.

Sustainability declarations will also be abolished when selling houses and an Office of Best Practice Regulation will be introduced to save unnecessary red tape.

These changes will be delivered to Queenslanders as soon as possible. The Newman Government is getting on with the job of getting Queensland back on track.

[Fares_Fair]

No trip up on journeys... But Sunshine Coast still off the rails.
Good news for cash low and regular weekly commuters and students. 

Getting Queensland back on trackS for the Sunshine Coast would make my decade.

[colinw]

IMHO the Sunshine Coast line should be right up there with CRR as a priority, simply because it impacts freight as well as passenger services, and is also a pre-condition for proceeding with CAMCOS.