Kylie Lang: Using the ghost of Campbell Newman won’t distract us from Wellcamp debacle
Annastacia Palaszczuk needs to take responsibility and apologise to taxpayers for the Wellcamp white elephant, one of the worst decisions her government has made, writes Kylie Lang.
Kylie Lang
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How long do we have to stomach Annastacia Palaszczuk invoking the ghost of Campbell Newman to try to distract us from her government’s acute failings?
Slamming Mr Newman was predictable leading up to the 2015 election – it’s how campaigns are run – but seven years on it is a very tired tune.
The hackneyed reference to Mr Newman, a polarising LNP premier who dared to trim the bloated public service by cutting 14,000 full-time jobs, was trotted out again this week as Ms Palaszczuk was grilled over the disgusting waste of taxpayer dollars that is the Wellcamp white elephant.
On Tuesday during Budget Estimates – a key process for government accountability and transparency – the Opposition asked Ms Palaszczuk when exactly Cabinet documents regarding the barely used quarantine facility would be released.
It was a fair question.
For almost a year, details about the sweetheart deal struck with Toowoomba’s minted Wagner family have been kept secret despite pressure from the Opposition and the media to be upfront.
Now we learn the facility – which Queensland never needed but the Premier insisted on, sinking in $223.5m to spite the then-LNP federal government – is to be mothballed.
Queenslanders should be seething.
Imagine how much better off we’d be right now, in this third Covid wave, if those precious millions had been put towards fixing our catastrophic health system.
Imagine how many doctors and nurses could have been hired, reducing ambulance ramping and impossible wait times in emergency wards.
Instead, that money was spent on about 700 people who stayed at Wellcamp after it opened in February, at roughly $320,000 a head.
But far be it from the Premier to answer questions she doesn’t like.
The best Ms Palaszczuk could do on Tuesday was bring up Newman.
“We’d love to see the Cabinet documents too from your term in government, that would be a doozy, wouldn’t it?” she said to Opposition Leader David Crisafulli.
“That would be interesting reading, absolutely interesting reading, the cuts to the public service; 14,000, building over there at one William St.”
Mr Crisafulli interjected, saying Ms Palaszczuk had “no future, no vision”.
“Same old games, round and round … red carpet, glitz, glamour, no vision,” he said.
Ms Palaszczuk retorted: “You are exactly like Campbell Newman ... I sit here and it’s like Campbell Newman all over again.”
Seven years, Premier. It’s time to move on. How about taking responsibility and apologising to taxpayers for what will go down as one of the worst decisions your government has made.
Wellcamp was announced in August 2021, a week after the Palaszczuk government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Morrison government for the 500-bed village at Damascus Barracks in Pinkenba, and more than a month after that quarantine site was proposed.
The Wagner Group was appointed without a customary tender process, and taxpayers were treated like mushrooms. The reopening of borders was already being discussed as a not-too-distant reality, but that didn’t stop Ms Palaszczuk forging ahead in a petulant attempt to flip the bird at the feds. When asked at a press conference if the prime minister knew about the state facility, she quipped: “I’m quite sure he does now”.
So much for working together for the good of the nation.
In May 2019 it was Ms Palaszczuk who, in opening Labor’s federal election campaign launch in Brisbane, pushed for unity between both levels of government.
She also said: “The LNP doesn’t care about us – they care about themselves”.
And she referenced Campbell Newman. “Just four years ago, we still had our own LNP government here in Queensland … they were arrogant and out of touch.”
Has she looked in the mirror lately?
Bagging Campbell Newman helped Annastacia Palaszczuk sweep to power in 2015, but much has happened since.
The costly Wellcamp debacle is just one of a litany of failures that has nothing to do with any previous premier.
Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail
kylie.lang@news.com.au
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