‘Hang your head in shame’: Government lashes Labor over ratings downgrade

An international ratings agency has issued a “negative outlook” for Queensland government finances and called on the Crisafulli government to outline its plan to stabilise the budget.

Shortly before parliamentary question time on Wednesday, S&P Global formally revised Queensland’s outlook from stable to negative, while maintaining other key ratings.

It prompted Treasurer David Janetzki to declare a downgrade, which he foreshadowed last month in the mid-year budget update, would be “Labor’s legacy”.

Having warned of a deteriorating state budget, Queensland Treasurer David Janetzki is under pressure to reveal the LNP’s fiscal strategy.Credit: Jamila Filippone

“There’s no doubt that this will add to the cost of borrowing,” he said, without outlining the cost to the budget.

Premier David Crisafulli called to the Labor members on the opposition benches: “Hang your head in shame.”

In a statement, S&P Global said the revision was in response to the mid-year budget update and the prospect of deficits and debt ratios weakening in the coming year.

But in pointing to “elevated uncertainty over Queensland’s fiscal outlook”, it made it clear that the new LNP government was not blameless.

“This is because the government describes [the mid-year budget update] as the previous government’s ‘last budget update’ and hasn’t incorporated its own fiscal strategy or all of its decisions in fiscal forecasts,” it said.

“The government has promised to address spending pressures and escalating capital costs in its June 2025-2026 budget to ensure debt will be lower than that forecast in [the mid-year budget update].

“It is unclear how the government will address spending pressures and how much lower expenditure and debt will be in the upcoming budget. This uncertainty is captured in our negative outlook.”

Shadow Treasurer Shannon Fentiman said the pessimism was “because David Janetzki juiced up the mid-year budget update and failed to provide any fiscal strategy”.

“David Janetzki’s cheap political points have become very expensive for Queenslanders,” Fentiman said, while calling on Crisafulli to outline which projects, services and workers would be cut.

Earlier, unions marched on parliament to protest over the government’s decision to suspend Best Practice Industry Conditions on major projects, while some also stormed the Queensland Council of Unions headquarters over the crackdown on the CFMEU.

Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie said the BPIC decision followed the “economic vandalism” of the former government and its “union thug mates”.

Bleijie vowed to continue focussing on productivity and efficiency initiatives, including by opposing national schemes and CFMEU reforms that he felt would disadvantage Queensland.

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