Editorial: Stadium hardly a blip in the budget

Premier Steven Miles says Queensland can’t afford a new stadium, but the government is positively swimming in cash, writes the editor.

Premier Steven Miles last week. Picture: Tertius Pickard/NCA NewsWire

Don’t believe it for a moment when Premier Steven Miles tries to liken his government’s budget to your own household expenses.

Mr Miles has taken to doing just this when explaining why he thinks he cannot afford a new stadium to host the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics (because, he says, he has to make a choice between that and schools and hospitals).

But the Miles Government is currently positively swimming in cash. Chances are your household feels pretty well the exact opposite.

To be fair, the government is facing similar cost pressures to the ones you are confronting at home. But on the revenue side, things have never looked better for a state government – quite literally.

Imagine if your take-home salary had soared 77 per cent since 2015. That is exactly the scenario the Miles Government is enjoying on its revenue – which has gone from $49.5bn in 2015 to a staggering $87.7bn this year, $25bn more than would be expected if state taxes had just tracked with inflation over those nine years.

There are two big reasons. The first is the super-profits tax that Treasurer Cameron Dick imposed without consultation on the state’s mining companies. That will deliver a tidy $10bn or so this year.

The second reason is the fact that as property prices have risen – more than 60 per cent across Queensland in the past four years alone – the percentage of the sale price the state government takes in stamp duty has remained the same.

The government took in $3bn from Queenslanders buying homes in 2020. It will be much more than $5bn this year.

“We listen to Queenslanders,” Mr Miles said yesterday. “They’re talking to me about their hospital, about their school, about how hard they’re finding it to make ends meet. When Queensland is facing those kinds of day to day challenges, I can’t justify spending billions more on stadiums.”

But why? He could if he wanted. Again, his government has the cash.

In fact, Treasurer Dick boasted last year that he had delivered the “largest budget surplus ever recorded by any state or territory government”. That surplus alone – $13.9bn – could fund four brand new stadiums, or indeed almost three of the government’s CopperString project to link Mount Isa to the national electricity grid.

And the government is already spending – stacks. It is committed to – and regularly talks up – a $96bn four-year “Big Build” infrastructure program that it has already begun. Within that is the government’s $3.6bn Games venues commitment (that did include, until last month, a new stadium). For the Premier to say this is an either-or decision for him is just bollocks.

No. This is all about the politics – the political reality that at a time when household budgets (unlike his government’s) are at breaking point, the Premier cannot get away with funding a new stadium – particularly one in the southeast.

But he started it, so let’s finish it. Let’s look at this challenge as if it WAS your household budget.

The cost of the construction of a new stadium would be, at most, $3.4bn spread over five years.

Let’s assume the government will take $85bn in revenue each year over those five years, the lower end of budget forecasts.

That means the outlay would be $680m a year – or 0.8 per cent of total state revenue each year.

Now let’s turn to your household budget. If your take-home after-tax income is, say $100,000, then 0.8 per cent of that is $800 a year.

That is less than what it will cost if you buy a coffee four times a week. And yet chances are you already do, totally uncontroversially.

DESPITE ALL THE CASH, VOTERS GOT IT RIGHT

The list of donors behind both sides of last years divisive Voice referendum, released yesterday for the first time, lead to a rather obvious conclusion.

Of the top 20 donors to both campaigns, the first 19 contributed to the Yes campaign.

In the seven months leading up to the October referendum, which was defeated 60-40 nationally, more than $92m was poured into advertising, social media, signage and other resources by both campaigns, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.

At least $62m was spent by
Yes-aligned organisations, unions and political parties, including a staggering $43.82m by Australians for Constitutional Change, the main fundraising arm of the
pro-Voice group Yes23.

All this, and the support of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, meant absolutely nothing as the proposal to establish an Indigenous Voice to Parliament was soundly defeated.

It shows that political expenditure – even when aligned to a well-executed grassroots campaign – does not always work.

In the end, the Yes campaign, despite their resources, simply failed to make the case for change. And the voters of Australia, as always, got it right.

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