Beattie’s plan shines light on Queensland’s leaders’ lack of ideas
It’s less than four months before Queenslanders go to the polls and someone has finally revealed a post-COVID economic plan. The problem is, it’s not from someone currently in power, writes Jessica Marszalek.
Opinion
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IT’S LESS than four months before Queenslanders go to the polls and they have finally had an economic plan laid out for them to help the state recover post-COVID-19.
It just wasn’t written by either leader vying for the top job.
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The 11-point plan produced by former premier Peter Beattie today is more than just a list of ideas worthy of consideration, it shows what’s been missing from Queensland’s current political discussion around the state’s post-COVID recovery.
And that is a willingness to talk about big-picture reform to help an economy being battered by the world’s biggest recession since the Great one.
Beattie calls for more public private partnerships to build visionary water infrastructure, payroll tax relief to encourage innovation, and the replacing of stamp duty with a new land tax system.
He wants Queensland to develop a trade strategy to overcome travel restrictions and sell our skills over the internet, he wants to attract smart companies and investors wanting to flee the political instability of Hong Kong and he reckons there needs to be a strategy so IT companies can take advantage of the working-from-home revolution.
They are ideas that are about seizing on the problems we are facing and turning them into opportunities.
Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe last week warned while Australia has done fairly well compared with other countries, we “face a world where there’ll be a shadow from the virus for quite a few years”.
He’s urged politicians and policymakers to use the crisis to make long-term changes to enhance productivity and economic growth.
“And the list of areas where we should be doing reforms is well known: they include tax, infrastructure, human capital, industrial relations, regulation, entrepreneurship and R and D (research and development),” he said.
NSW has championed a bold plan to end stamp duty and replace it with a broadbased land tax as one of many tax reforms to help the nation recover from the economic hit of coronavirus.
Experts say such a move would increase housing affordability and help first-home buyers.
But there has been quiet on reform issues in Queensland.
As the coronavirus pandemic shows no signs of abating internationally, as Victoria enters a devastating second wave and with national unemployment forecast to still be hovering at 8.5 per cent by June next year, the Palaszczuk Government has provided short-term relief but no clear path out of this pandemic.
It’s taking ages to pay out $200 million worth of small business grants meant to be a COVID lifeline and the only major element of the Palaszczuk Government’s worker’s assistance package unveiled so far – a Jobs Finder program – has linked just 147 unemployed people with jobs.
Treasurer Cameron Dick revealed an economic plan of sorts last week he says will save $3 billion by capping the public service and slashing around the edges on things like consultants, glossy brochures, social media and thinner annual reports.
Yet he couldn’t give reporters the number the public service will be capped at because the latest figures are hopelessly out of date and there was no concrete information on how this plan would actually create jobs.
And he revealed the government’s debt plan – the $5 billion Future Fund – unveiled in December is in tatters because the government can no longer skim the full amount off the government’s defined benefits nest egg surplus thanks to the share market whack from COVID.
Looking to the LNP, Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington has promised no new taxes, a second M1, four new dams and a drought-busting New Bradfield Scheme to supercharge agricultural production in outback Queensland.
But these were all promised before COVID struck.
It’s true neither side has laid out it election policies yet, but Queenslanders deserve time to properly consider, probe and debate the economic plans of the two women who want to guide the state out of this crisis.
A visionary plan might just see the next government create a new “smart state”.