2017-18 Qld State Budget

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Brisbanetimes --> Nicholls rules out asset sales in LNP budget reply

Queensland Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls has used his budget reply speech in State Parliament to rule out asset sales, as he made an election pitch to voters.

Mr Nicholls had been challenged by the Labor government to rule out asset sales to pay for his election promises, and he made that pledge on Thursday.

Borrowing a phrase from former prime minister Tony Abbott, Mr Nicholls said the issue was: "dead, buried and cremated".

"Let me make it very clear - we will not sell government-owned corporations," Mr Nicholls said.

"I am ruling out assets sales or leases, and drawing a line under the issue once and for all."

Mr Nicholls was treasurer in the Newman government, which went to the 2015 election promising to privatise ports and the electricity network and was ousted from power.

But he says he has listened to Queenslanders' dissatisfaction with his plan for long-term leases of assets.

Mr Nicholls also took the opportunity to again rule out a preference deal with One Nation at the upcoming election, and warned a vote for minor parties was a vote for Labor.

"Let me make it clear, there will be no deal with One Nation, no shared ministry and no coalition," he said.

The opposition leader also addressed concerns over the public service, pledging there would be no forced redundancies, after the previous LNP government sacked 14,000 public servants.

He announced he would bring back the Royalties for Regions program, as well as establish a $100 million Get Queensland Working Plan to help tackle youth unemployment.

"Queenslanders have been stranded for three years without leadership, without direction, without a clear plan," he said.

"Today I fired our first salvo to offer Queenslanders a clear alternative to this do nothing Labor government."

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Queensland Parliament Hansard

https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/hansard/2017/2017_06_16_DAILY.pdf

1825 Appropriation (Parliament) Bill; Appropriation Bill; Revenue
Legislation Amendment Bill 16 Jun 2017

Mrs JR MILLER (Bundamba—ALP) (12.23 pm): This budget is a mixed bag for the Bundamba
electorate. There are some good spending initiatives, such as $100,000 to repurpose the outdoor
learning area adjacent to the computer lab at Redbank State School; $100,000 to refurbish Riverview
State School's general learning area for a music space; $715,000 towards construction of a new
community centre at Redbank Plains; some money to complete the Dinmore railway station; and
$473,000 to replace and refurbish the existing infrastructure at the Swanbank E Power Station.
However, I would not be doing my job in this parliament unless I said that I was disappointed that no
money has been allocated for an extension of the railway line from Springfield Central to Redbank
Plains. This is a necessary piece of infrastructure in my community and it would have cost less than
one-tenth of Cross River Rail.

I am also disappointed that no money has been allocated to fix the dreadful interchange past
Springfield Lakes where the speed limit on the highway drops from 100 kilometres per hour to 60 and
then goes back up again to 100. In my community we also need a new administration block for Kruger
State School; the Redbank Plains State Primary School needs to be refurbished; we need more public
housing for seniors; and we need money for the filling up of the mines underneath Collingwood Park.
We need real use of the land owned by the department of housing at Collingwood Park so that housing
can be built there, preferably seniors housing, that is lightweight. The fire station at Bundamba needs
to be completed once and for all. It is a saga. Honestly, you drive past there nearly every day and
nothing really happens. Bremer TAFE once again must become the preeminent vocational training
provider choice for locals. We need more police liaison officers that are adequately resourced to prevent
crime in our proud multicultural community. We need trains that run on time and a Monday-to-Friday
timetable for those who work a standard work week.

We need more full-time jobs instead of part-time jobs and casual work. The lack of full-time
permanent jobs in my electorate is disturbing and worrying. Too many people are underemployed; that
is, they are working in part-time and casual jobs and that affects the way they live. Too many people
live in poverty. Too many children and older people in my area are living in poverty, and I have had
enough of it. I can tell you now that their quality of life is poor and their standard of living is very poor.
Poverty is the No. 1 issue in my area now, and it is caused by not having enough money to live on. It
is caused by underemployment and unemployment. In my electorate office we see the effects of this
every day of the week. We need to stop talking about jobs, jobs, jobs and start talking about full-time
jobs, full-time jobs, full-time jobs, because that is what people want. It is not rocket science. These days
in my electorate a full-time job is an aspiration for many, but in my generation we saw it as a right.
The term 'liquid workforce' has been adopted to refer to employees who are able to retrain and
adapt to their environment in order to stay relevant during this digital revolution. The term 'human cloud'
refers to workers who work for agencies to fill gaps temporarily in the labour force rather than employers
hiring and firing people due to the changing nature of available jobs. Today the human cloud, freelance
workers, comprise some 35 per cent of the workforce and their numbers are expected to reach
75-80 per cent by 2030. As Stephen Hawking said—
The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely
to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.

We see daily that business models like eBay, Uber, airbnb and Freelancer are thriving and
growing the digital economy and disrupting existing business. The question is how to ensure that the
transformations they entail have a positive impact in our community. They are changing the way that
we undertake business and the way people that are employed and provide income for their families.
The 'gig economy' is where people work for various one-off jobs for a fee rather than being a PAYE
employee, where their money is put into their bank accounts. This poses challenges for legislators in
terms of protecting workers. It challenges how trade unions support workers and it challenges workers
who seek to provide a steady income to support their families.

As a community we need to foresee these changes and bring forward ideas and strategies to
either repel them or adapt to this changing workforce. Government of course needs to take a central
role in facilitating change to allow workers to adapt to new labour markets and ensuring they are
protected from the worst elements of the new changes these technological advances bring. Today I call
on this government to refer this issue to the employment committee of this parliament to investigate
and report on these matters as a matter of urgency. That is because it is affecting workers in my local
community every day of the week.

I believe that Australia needs to consider a universal basic income. The idea of a universal basic
income is not new. It, too, must be referred to a committee of this parliament. We have to make sure
that people have a sustainable income source that treats them with dignity and respect and allows them
a place in this new emerging economy. Thomas Paine talked of it at the time of the American revolution.
Martin Luther King stated that he believed it was a means to end poverty. Here in Australia it was talked
about by Bill Hayden in the Whitlam government. What we need to debate in this parliament is: is the
universal basic income an idea whose time has come?

In India, where it has been trialled through UNICEF, some consequences were improvements in
nutrition, better school attendance, more—not fewer—in work and greater small-scale investments. In
Canada, women were more likely delay returning to the workforce after childbirth, while adolescents
and young adults were more likely to finish high school and attend tertiary education rather than leave
early to get a job. There were also improvements in the physical and mental health of participants.
People's jobs give them a sense of self-worth—their place and role in the community, their value
as a contributing member of society, their place as the income producer in the family, the social
interaction with work colleagues and clients, and connections with other workers through the trade
union movement. In many ways you are defined by your work. Indeed, you are what you do. Automation
could take this away, with concerns for mental and physical health and social cohesion. A universal
basic income does not take that basic need away, so people will still want to contribute to the community
and society in general, although automation may alter how this occurs with the change in the labour
market and the economy.

Only a few years ago, when people became unemployed in my electorate I was able to point
them to Bremer TAFE to undertake almost free training at certificate and diploma level. It gave people
hope and training for the future, and there were many success stories. Now unemployed people want
to enrol in a TAFE course but they have to show their Centrelink or income statements, and some are
refused enrolment because they are too poor. It is the ultimate kick in the guts for these people, for
people in my electorate.

The training system has failed my community and it needs to be fixed. Indeed, it must be fixed.
It has to be able to give hope to people—to give hope to our high school students, to the many who are
unemployed or underemployed. I know that this is a national issue, but there must be a bipartisan
agreement across parliaments nationally and at the state level to bring TAFE back to the workers, to
provide excellent training for jobs now and into the future. In a rapidly changing world economy and
jobs market, we need to understand now what our future is going to look like and how we are going to
prepare for it. I always welcome government initiatives to produce jobs and training for working people,
but we are now on the cusp of a dramatic change of employment due to the increasingly technological
ways we are doing work in our community.

This brings with it many great things but also many great challenges for the community to face.
The challenges are not just economic in terms of fewer jobs for a growing population. They are also
social in terms of how people will be valued and contribute to our local community. There may be a time
when there will not be employment or there will be massive underemployment, and I am seeing this in
my electorate. All sorts of jobs have been reported as being replaced by technological advances in
artificial intelligence and robotics. We know that we can probably not stem this tide, so we are looking
at driverless cars, automated ships and docks, 3D printing replacing construction workers, medical
professionals replaced by artificial intelligence, automated cars taking jobs from bus drivers, taxidrivers
and truck drivers, and maybe even algorithms replacing lawyers, accountants and other professions.
The potential impact on jobs in our community is not just about low-skilled manual labour but is
across-the-board. Even governments are now experimenting with replacing staff with robotic interfaces
in Centrelink offices.

This rapid change in the labour market means that workers will need to be flexible and embrace
continuous learning and continuous retraining to keep pace with new job prospects wherever they may
arise. This means we need to ensure cost-effective, reliable training and employment programs that
are available across all demographics in our community. That training should be free or affordable and
it needs to be job focused for that point in time.

In relation to health matters in my community, I want more money spent for public patients in the
Mater Private Hospital in Springfield. That will help in the short term, but in the long term we need
planning for hospital access in the eastern suburbs of Ipswich. The facts are simply that people in my
electorate do not go backwards towards Ipswich Hospital; they go down the Ipswich Motorway or down
the railway line towards the Royal Brisbane, the QEII and the PA hospitals. They go towards Brisbane
city as that is where most of them work. I am concerned that these facts have been continuously ignored
by the Ipswich Hospital board. In fact, recently they had a forum to discuss the so-called health strategic
plan in my area. It was to commence at six o'clock in the evening in Ipswich Central, but people in my
electorate are not home at six o'clock at night, let alone if they have to go backwards towards Ipswich
Central. When I wrote and asked for a forum in the eastern suburbs I did not even get a reply. So much
for consultation! We will not be ignored on health in my area. We demand a say, and I say to this health
board: have the decency to respond, to organise real consultation and to let us have a say. The
Bundamba Creek line must go.

I know that my community, like many others, has problems with obesity, diabetes, heart disease
and blood pressure, amongst others, but we do not want any fancy programs; we want nurses to set
up in pop-up shops in the shopping centres where they can be health coaches, where they can talk to
people about how to lose weight, how to cook simple meals and adapt that to their own various cultural
recipes. We need nurses to help our people eat better, exercise more and become healthier, and there
are many vacant shops in shopping centres in my area where they could easily set up a program.

I know that one of the biggest worries in my community is the cost of electricity. People in my
area are interested in the bottom line. They simply want to know what it costs, and many of them have
solar panels. The opposition stated earlier this week that coal is not a dirty word in the LNP. Well, it is
not a dirty word in the ALP either—not while I and the member for Mirani are sitting here! I support
Queensland's coal industry and I support coal-fired power generation that uses clean coal technology
and that lowers the cost of power bills for people in my electorate. Any new coal-fired power station
should be built right next door to a coalmine and it should be in the coalfields in Central Queensland
where enclosed conveyor belts go straight into the power station. I would have coal any day over the
dreadful prospect in future years of nuclear power plants, and I say that having had coal power stations
in my electorate since the 1960s.

I want to talk about the effects of unemployment and underemployment in my local community.
My people are not numbers. We should not be referring to them as No. 2,010 in relation to statistics on
unemployment or underemployment. They are people. They live. They breathe the air. They eat. They
have needs. In my community we try to support through Anglicare, St Vinnies and the Salvation Army
those people who are living in poverty—the unemployed, the underemployed and those who are on
pensions and benefits from all age groups, and they are living in poverty. I say to each and every one
of them who are going through this time in their life that I want you to know that you are worthwhile and
that you should never be judged otherwise by anyone; that your life journey matters as together we
face these economic and employment challenges; that if you are hurting we in your local community
hurt as well and that your feelings matter. Together we will work through these challenges to work and
the changes in the local economy and the economy in Queensland and nation-wide. Finally, I want my
local people to know that I love them and that they will never walk alone whilst I am their MP

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https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/875857410971140096

Footnote: Mrs Miller is my local MP.

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Sunday Mail 18th June 2017 page 7

Nays give way to ayes in Budget backflip

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^

[verbatim9]

Last 2 budgets disportionately favoured North and Regional Qld at the expense of SE Queensland. Areas most affected are booming suburbs west north and south of Brisbane. Logan, Sunshine Coast being some.


https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/analysis-shows-booming-south-east-is-losing-funds-to-north-queensland-20170907-p4yvsg.html

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Brisbanetimes --> Analysis shows booming south-east is losing funds to north Queensland


Queensland economist Gene Tunny says a breakdown of funding from the 2017-18 Budget shows the southeast corner is now missing out.

Queensland's fastest-growing regions in the south-east corner are being "unfairly" underfunded at the expense of north Queensland, an economist's analysis of the state government's 2017-18 budget shows.

Economist Gene Tunny, a former Commonwealth Treasury economist who now runs the Queensland Economy Watch website, examined where the money was being spent in the 2017-18 budget.

Mr Tunny found the government spending difference between north and south-east Queensland to be "excessive".

"The large per capita funding differences between well-funded regions, such as Fitzroy and inner Brisbane, and relatively poorly funded regions, such as Brisbane's eastern, southern and western suburbs and Logan-Beaudesert among others, appear excessive to me," he wrote.
Queensland economist Gene Tunny says a breakdown of funding from the 2017-18 Budget shows the southeast corner is now missing out.

Queensland economist Gene Tunny says a breakdown of funding from the 2017-18 Budget shows the southeast corner is now missing out.

Mr Tunny found funding to all of Queensland's fastest-growing regions, such as Brisbane's outer suburbs, the Moreton Bay region, Logan, Beaudesert and the Gold and Sunshine coasts, was "well below the state average".
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"You could now make a strong case for them being considered as underfunded and for a reallocation of funding," Mr Tunny told Fairfax Media on Wednesday.

Mr Tunny's funding breakdown was on a per capita basis, explaining why the outback and the Darling Downs figures, where the population was comparatively lower, showed they were funded "well over" the state average of $2000 per person in the 2017-18 budget.

It found inner Brisbane, Fitzroy, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns, Ipswich, Brisbane North and Wide Bay are also funded "above the state average".

Treasurer Curtis Pitt did not specifically counter Mr Tunny's observations about the budget funding, but said: "In no way we are ignoring the needs of south-east Queensland."

Mr Pitt said "almost half" the $10.7 billion earmarked for 2017-18 was for regional projects.

"There is no top-down formula for allocating capital spending by region," he said.

"The bulk of capital expenditure is determined by agencies in line with service delivery objectives.

"To the extent that cabinet's budget review committee is involved, decisions are primarily based on strategic government priorities, rather than attempting to balance the spend across regions as an objective in itself."

Mr Tunny said he believed the Queensland government was nervous of the regions and needed to win seats in in those regions to hold office.

"What I make of the figures is that the government is certainly overly conscious of feelings in the regions that they are being ripped off by George Street and over the past couple of years that is blatantly incorrect," he said.

"However I think, on the basis of the figures I have seen, there are regions in the south-east corner that are being under-funded and I don't think that is fair.

"There are the fast-growing areas that are not getting the funding that they need."

Queensland Treasury publishes a breakdown of statewide projects on its website here where projects and services are divided into community, education, health, justice and safety, government services transport and roads, culture and utilities.

When the Queensland Treasury information is divided into "single region" category, it appeared to support the findings revealed by Mr Tunny in some economic areas, but not all.

It should be noted, however, that some funding is linked to repairing damage caused by Cyclone Debbie in April 2017.

Mr Pitt said the Palaszczuk government was taking a deliberate policy step to support regional communities "that are not transitioning to a post-mining boom economy as well as others."

"We have implemented a range of programs to help business and industry grow and create jobs in regional Queensland, and our $40 billion four-year infrastructure program gives special attention to regional economies," he said.

Mr Pitt said the government's decision to bring forward almost $2 billion for the Cross River Rail project in this year's budget was proof it was not ignoring the south-east.

"It's impossible to have a discussion about infrastructure investment in southeast Queensland and ignore the massive $5.4 billion committed to the Cross River Rail project," he said.

Mr Tunny's analysis includes money for the Cross River Rail project.

Mr Pitt also included the $512 million Logan Enhancement Project, partially funded by truck drivers tolls, as an example of an important south-east Queensland project.