Editorial: Businesses need help, not taxation

Treasurer Cameron Dick’s refusal to – twice – rule out changing taxes for business in next week’s state budget deserves to be called out, writes The Editor.

Treasurer Cameron Dick’s refusal to – twice – rule out changing taxes for business in next week’s state budget deserves to be called out.

Readers would recall Mr Dick’s 2022 budget announcement of massive new hikes in coal royalties aimed at harvesting more of then-record coal prices for the state.

Blindsided coal miners were outraged.

They still are. It has had a real effect on investment decisions in our state.

But Mr Dick’s sly defence – then, and repeated yesterday – was to explain that: “We promised no new or increased taxes on Queenslanders, and that’s our promise ... I didn’t make a promise to big coal companies. I didn’t make a promise to big corporations.”

And so whatever lies in store in next week’s budget, we offer this warning: businesses in Queensland are struggling.

Treasurer Cameron Dick. Picture: NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Local companies need all the help they can get, not any further imposts, either financial through increased taxes of charges, or via new rules and regulations that add to the cost and complexity of doing business.

As we have reported, Australian business foreclosures are surging towards levels not seen since the global financial crisis of 2007-08.

In Queensland, there were 1608 insolvencies in the 10 months to April – a 39 per cent jump on the 1157 during the same period last year. The food, accommodation and construction sectors have been particularly badly hit.

And the experts say things are unlikely to improve before late 2025.

The big challenge for Mr Dick is that the state’s revenue streams are slowly starting to return to more normal levels following the gusher of cash from his coal royalties super-profits regime. But spending has not slowed. In fact, Mr Dick appears set to increase spending.

When Mr Dick announced the government’s controversial new royalties structure in 2022, he predicted it would add about $1.2bn to state coffers.

Premier Steven Miles and Treasurer Cameron Dick. Picture: Liam Kidston

The reality, fuelled by an unprecedented run of high coal prices and demand, has been a windfall beyond even the most optimistic treasurer’s dreams – an extra $20bn or so, depending on where you start and finish your calculations.

Despite the full knowledge that this surge of new money could only ever be temporary, Mr Dick ramped up spending to the extent that now the cash windfall has dried up and the government will now have to borrow more to pay its bills.

Mr Dick has acknowledged state debt could reach $73bn by 2028 – five times higher than the $15bn currently.

The Miles government insists both its spending and its borrowings are essential and fiscally responsible and necessary – from its $90bn, four-year Big Build capital works program to its recently announced $2.5bn energy rebate measure designed to relieve cost of living pressures. But the simple fact is the state needs to keep finding the money to pay for its various expensive initiatives and ever-increasing borrowing costs.

One option would be to take the axe to government public sector spending, but we confidently predict that will not happen in next week’s budget – just months away from the next state election.

New taxes and charges are the other obvious option. But that, as we note, would be disastrous for already struggling local businesses.

And so, expect a budget that will put us further in debt being sold to us by a treasurer who insists he knows just what he’s doing.

Stand by, the Treasurer says. Small business people are doing more than that: they are now desperately crossing their fingers – and holding their breath.

DV DELAYS UNACCEPTABLE

Surely we have all learnt over the past few years the absolutely critical importance of doing more to assist the many victims of domestic and family violence in our communities.

Sadly, it seems – at least on the evidence provided thus far – that the Miles Government’s Minister responsible for the prevention of domestic and family violence – Yvette D’Ath – has for some reason not read the room.

That her department has only managed to deliver four extra frontline domestic violence workers funded by the federal government two years ago is a disgrace – and the employment of those four workers was confirmed yesterday only after The Courier-Mail demanded a reason for the delay.

The Albanese government is trying to distance itself from the inaction of the states – and Queensland is the worst – writing to Ms D’Ath to raise concerns about the rollout of DV staff.

Governments of all stripes constantly cry poor – but here we have allocated money, for a cause that every Queenslander would support, just sitting there while the wheels of bureaucracy move at a glacial pace.

It’s not good enough. Premier Steven Miles needs to remind his minister of the importance of these DV hires, and the positions need to be filled with the greatest haste.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here