Editorial: Labor worse for economy than COVID-19

Queensland’s economy has been flatlining much longer than the pandemic, in fact since Labor came to power, writes the editor.

If you were too harsh a critic you might suggest Queensland’s devastating unemployment figures suggest Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her Treasurer Cameron Dick are concerned for no one else’s jobs but their own.

After an election campaign in October and finally getting around to delivering a Budget in December ahead of a week or two of estimates hearings, the Premier and Treasurer are now clearly eyeing their summer holidays.

And they deserve a break.

Nobody would suggest that in an election year either of them have not earned a few weeks off.

Equally, both can now be quite confident that they jobs are safe for at least the next four years – and that is a feeling out of step with the rest of the state.

Queensland’s jobless rate is now firmly entrenched as the second-worst in the nation, behind perennial economic basket case Tasmania.

And despite 90,000 people nationally having returned to work in November, 20,300 Queenslanders lost their jobs in that month.

Coupled with a drop in the “participation rate” – that is, the number of people actively looking for work – and our state’s jobless rate is static at 7.7 per cent.

On top of that is the fact our underemployment rate is now 9.4 per cent – that is, 10 per cent of Queenslanders in employment need more hours.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Treasurer Cameron Dick on Budget day

These figures are clearly not good enough, and are a sad indictment on the economic management of the State Labor Government.

And that’s a fact. The national unemployment rate fell from 7 per cent to 6.8 per cent last month, with New South Wales (now at 6.5 per cent) and even lockdown-blighted Victoria improving (to 7.1 per cent).

How could this be the case? It cannot be solely the fault of this year’s pandemic.

The sad truth is Queensland’s economy has been flatlining for years ahead of lockdowns and lock-ins – a decline that correlates almost perfectly with the life of this Government.

And yet Queensland, with its near-boundless opportunities, should be leading the nation out of the COVID slump, not bringing up the rear.

Instead, the only time this Government appears to stay focused on the job at hand is when there was an opportunity to hold steady under the left arm its Unite and Recover document – a glossy brochure exposed repeatedly as a pamphlet rather than a plan.

Through following the advice of experts including Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young, the Government did manage this year to keep most of us safe.

That significant achievement having been achieved, it should now be tackling the even bigger challenge – of creating jobs and getting the economy firing again – with the same energy and focus.

Sadly, there are few signs so far the Government has such plans.

The Budget – when it was finally delivered earlier this month – was little more than signing the cheques that had already been inked for election promises, paid for by big borrowings.

There was little to offer businesses any confidence, nothing to convince them to expand or put on more employees or give them extra, desperately needed hours.

Mr Dick may well argue there has never been a better time to borrow, with historically low interest rates.

But it is not borrowing that is the issue – it is what that money is paying for that counts. Instead of borrowing to build assets that will fuel economic growth, Queensland is borrowing to pay its public servants.

Frontline or not, that is just bad policy – and means that instead of investing in assets that increase state value, we are borrowing to pay our day-to-day bills.

Can you imagine running a household like that?

We desperately need a serious economic reset because without a radical shake up, things are just not going to get any easier.

Experts are already tipping an insolvency cliff when company trading rules revert to normal on January 1 – followed by the looming change to JobKeeper in March.

Now is the time for Treasurer Dick to prove to Queenslanders that he is the person to steer our state out of our economic malaise.

He needs to spend more time on the economic settings that will get our state firing and less time on moody black and white photo vignettes like the one his team posted on social media ahead of Budget day of him looking thoughtfully out a window.

Mr Dick needs to be back behind the Treasurer’s desk, kick his fiscal mandarins into action and our economy into gear.

Everyone loves a holiday, but we can’t afford an endless summer of unemployment and the bitter harvest of economic disappointment it would inevitably bring.

We need the hard work to begin now. We expect nothing less.