Queensland treasurer rejects budget ‘horror show' and finally exorcises Campbell Newman's ghost

The Guardian

4 hours ago

Campbell Newman must be turning in his political grave.
But that is clearly the point of Queensland treasurer David Janetzki's first state budget – a 'no austerity' plan that grows the public sector, increases state debt to more than $200bn and is relatively free of ideological nasties.
The last time a first-term Liberal National party government in Queensland delivered its first financial plan – back in 2012 – the health minister, Tim Nicholls, and Newman sacked 14,000 public servants and cut frontline services. In the process, they hampered Queensland's conservatives at the ballot box for a decade.
Janetzki describes his budget as an attempt at finding the middle ground.
In reality, it is a deliberate marker from the new government to distance itself from Newman; to bury the former premier's slash-and-burn approach deep underground and encase it in concrete to prevent a zombie return.
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The LNP was elected last year, largely on the back of its hardline youth crime agenda.
The election tactic on most other issues was neutralisation – to adopt Labor's plans and minimise many of the economic policy differences – and the 2025 budget is true to form in that regard. Many of Labor's signature cost-of-living policies, including 50c transport fares and energy rebates, remain in place.
The government has kept those promises in spite of some budgetary challenges, both real and invented.
Coal royalties have tanked compared with the recent past, when Labor hiked royalty rates on super profits and made billions on the back of high export prices. Queensland's GST allocation for next year has also dropped; ironically partly because the state's coal royalties income has been strong in previous years.
The LNP spent much of its first few months in power in Queensland trotting out exaggerated stories about Labor cooking the books. Those had raised some concern that the government was laying the groundwork to excuse ideological cuts as unavoidable.
The government has dealt with those budgetary pressures largely by allowing state debt to continue to increase. It acknowledges that the state could be facing a credit rating downgrade.
It remains to be seen what the LNP's hardliners might privately make of this budget. There remain, in the party room and within the broader party, plenty who privately want to tackle debt and rein in the public sector.
For now though – as during the election campaign – there remains little public dissent about the course.
The focus groups tell the party that Queenslanders want public assets in public hands and they value reasonable government spending on the services they rely on.
This is a budget from a government that believes, above all else, about a second term.
And one that wants to ensure the comparisons with Newman – whose 'horror show' first budget loomed over four Queensland elections – are gone for good.
'If there is one scare campaign I expect the opposition to run hardest on – I'm not even going to say the word, but what I will say is their scare campaign ends today,' Janetzki told reporters.
What he was really saying was that the LNP finally now has the opportunity to step out of the spectre of 'He Who Must Not Be Named'.