Peter Gleeson: Rude shock awaits if Greens get their way
After a good performance at Brisbane’s city council voite, the Greens are boasting they could nab as many as seven seats at the state election in October. Here’s why that would be a disaster, writes Peter Gleeson.
Opinion
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WE ALL know the Labor Party can’t handle money. The political narrative in this country is that Labor spends our taxpayer dough and the Coalition then get in and fix the balance sheet. It’s a cycle.
In Queensland, we have a government that is fast sending the state broke. Debt is nearing $100 billion, the public service has ballooned out by an extra 57,000 since 2015 and even before COVID-19, unemployment was the worst in the country. On just about every national economic indicator, Queensland languishes near the bottom. Yet Labor looks like fiscal whiz kid Warren Buffett, compared with the Greens.
The scary thing is that mostly young voters have fallen for the Greens and their Svengali-like climate policies, oblivious to the fact the Greens’ economic and social justice reforms are straight out of the hit movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
It means the Greens could quite conceivably hold the balance of power at the next state election on October 31. After a strong showing at the Brisbane City Council election, the Greens are openly boasting they could win as many as seven seats at the state poll.
And if that happens – where they horse-trade their kooky policies into law – Queensland is in for a rude shock.
Under the Greens, $70 billion will be spent on two policies alone – $35 billion on energy and $35 billion on public housing.
For context, the total revenue received by the Queensland Government in any given year is about $60 billion.
The Greens are yet to release a full health policy, although some elements have been made public and include nationalising private hospitals.
No funding announcements yet on transport and education, but take it to the bank they won’t be cheap. Bikeways are expensive.
They will put a waste levy on industries and abolish the first homeowner grant scheme. They want a state-based progressive tax system, including phasing out payroll tax.
The Greens have particularly taken aim at the mining and banking industries. On mining, the Greens want to raise $55 billion in royalties over the next four years. They say they will “substantially and progressively increase royalties, especially on coal and coal seam gas”.
What they don’t factor into this whacky utopian fantasy is that if the royalty rates go from 7 per cent to 19 per cent – as planned – many mines and gas fields will simply become uneconomic and shut down.
How about this beauty? The Queensland Greens are moving to introduce a system of civil sanctions for personal illicit drugs when not associated with other crimes. While these policies will not impact drug dealers or traffickers, any individual found in possession of illegal drugs will not face criminal charges.
The type of drug and quantity is not specified in the policy. We won’t need jails at that rate.
On private schools, the Greens are looking at grants on a “needs basis’’. Greens Senator Larissa Waters said last year: “We will expand building and infrastructure funding so that the majority of funding goes to public schools, remove the artificial cap on federal funding for public education and stop the special deals by major parties with private schools.’’
The Greens will ban all donations from the gambling industry.
Ironically, the Greens receive donations from known gambling syndicate operator Duncan Turpie.
Turpie, a recluse who is involved with The Punters Club from his Gold Coast mansion, has donated $100,000 to the Greens from 2017-19, according to their register of political donations.
The Queensland Greens have said since 2014 that they want to establish a new ministerial portfolio for sexuality and gender identity.
The Greens will cut billions from the defence budget.
They will also ban the live export cattle industry and poultry farms.
In Queensland, the state branch openly touts its Marxist-Leninist politics and economic plan.
Its Queensland branch powerbroker Cr Jonathan Sri has openly stated he is an anarchist and a communist. He refers to coal mining as “fully automated luxury colonialism’’.
He argues for the nationalisation of all mines and for them to be handed over to the First Nations people.
They say that they will ban all new mines and gas fields, which would mean no new revenue stream to replace the mines their royalties madness would destroy.
Make no mistake, the Greens fancy themselves going into the October 31 poll.
Hung parliaments are not good for anyone. Letting the Greens anywhere near future Queensland economic and social justice policy would be madness and, more importantly, downright dangerous.
ACLAND ISSUE SHOWS JOBS MANTRA IS HOLLOW
THE Palaszczuk Government’s decision to block the Acland Stage 3 coal mine expansion is breathtaking in its hypocrisy.
This is a government that will go to the October 31 election with a mantra that says it’s all about jobs, jobs and jobs.
Yet by blocking Acland, the government is not only turning its back on another 480 employees, it is forcing Acland to lay off 35 staff as coal reserves run out. The argument from Mines Minister Anthony Lynham that it is still the subject of court action is nebulous and disingenuous.
Before the last election, the Labor government gave a commitment to proceed with the mine if it got the okay after a judicial review process.
That was green-lit, only for activists to take that decision to the High Court, where this issue will languish for another 18 months.
Mr Lynham could approve this mine with the stroke of a pen, just as the Palaszczuk Government did with Adani. Even federal MPs Joel Fitzgibbon and Shayne Neumann have broken ranks and suggested the mine be approved. They know Labor’s anti-coal messaging costs jobs – and votes.
This is the problem for the Labor Party right now. It has abandoned workers – miners.
It did so with Adani and it’s doing it now with Acland Stage 3.
This is despite it being a win-win. More jobs and more coal royalties. Please don’t buy the argument that the Labor Party is all about jobs. They are not.
Acland Stage 3 proves it. They are a shadow of the party founded in Barcaldine by shearers in 1888.
IT GLITCH TAKES TOLL ON QBCC
THE Queensland Building and Construction Commission’s chief information officer David Black has departed.
Sources say Mr Black was not enamoured with the IT system, much touted by Minister Mick Di Brenni.
SAFE PAY PACKET
As companies throughout the world shed jobs and cut salaries of their employees to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, it seems that the safest place to be employed these days is with either the government or the ABC.
And the salaries of senior public servants in Queensland are eye- watering. The Premier’s right-hand man Dave Stewart (pictured together), known as a sharp operator, earns $750,000 a year.
Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll earns $620,000 and the state’s directors-general earn an average of $632,000 per annum.
Even Racing Queensland chief executive Brendan Parnell pockets a salary package of $535,000. The Premier’s annual salary is $380,000.
LAST CALL FOR FLEMING
Promising Brisbane racecaller Josh Fleming has departed Sky Channel and has been replaced by 4TAB’s David Fowler.
The argument, presumably, was based on finances.
It’s understood Fleming will broadcast the Gold Coast races.
Some within the industry are perplexed by the decision.
TODAY SHOW CENSOR WAR
One Nation NSW leader Mark Latham has declared war on Channel 9 after it axed Pauline Hanson from the Today Show.
He’s particularly aggrieved at Nine’s head of news, Darren Wick, who made the decision.
Latham has challenged Wick to a TV debate on Channel 9 about censorship and “cowardly backing down to the PC movement’’.
MAGIC IS LOST AFTER VICTORIAN BAN
The Magic Millions half-yearly thoroughbred sale will be hard hit by Queensland’s ban on Victorians.
Many bloodstock agents and buyers from Victoria were quarantining for 14 days in northern NSW before heading to the sales.
Now they are barred altogether.