Opinion: State’s poor economy gives Premier even more reason to dump Trad

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s plummeting popularity in the polls shows she is paying the political price for failing to sack Deputy Premier Jackie Trad, writes Des Houghton.

UNPOPULAR Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk now has a second compelling reason to fire Jackie Trad. She, Trad, is a recklessly incompetent Treasurer. Maybe even the worst in the state’s history.

The government finances are a basket case with Auditor-General Brendan Worrall warning this week that government debt is still spinning out of control with spending outstripping revenue.

It comes as a Courier-Mail polls show Palaszczuk more unpopular than Anna Bligh and Campbell Newman before they were ingloriously turfed from office.

Premier’s support plunges to same level as Bligh bloodbath

Jackie Trad faces losing Left faction colleague Bruce Saunders

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk: Queensland has a lot to be proud of

Palaszczuk’s credibility was hit when she failed to act in an integrity scandal revealed by The Courier-Mail in which Trad failed to declare a property she and her husband purchased near where the new Boggo Road Station will be built under Cross River Rail. She was in charge of the Cross River Rail project.

Palaszczuk went against the advice of her colleagues to sack Trad. And she has paid the price. Labor’s poll ratings have slumped.

Worrall’s report wont help. The Palaszczuk-Trad union collective has created a debt mountain our children’s children will have to climb.

Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad.

“Unless the Queensland government can increase its revenue or constrain the recent growth in its expenses, it risks not being able to meet the costs of its activities from the revenue it earns going forward,” Worrall said in his report to Parliament.

“As identified in this report, the Queensland government faces several uncertainties around its future revenue including the level of grant funding provided by the Australian government.”

And I fear there are a number of unexploded debt bombs on the horizon not considered by Worrall.

Worrall’s report concerns the state’s finances for the 2018/2019 financial year. That being the case, there is no mention in it about the impact on the state economy of the coronavirus virus that will inevitably devastate tourism, hurt mineral and beef exports and halt the Chinese student revenue stream to our universities. A disruption to coal exports could cut valuable

royalties.

Worrall also warned a “significant factor” in the rising debt crisis was the growth in the number of public servants.

A stacking of the public service with card-carrying unionists is the new Joke, the term applied to government wrongdoing by the Fitzgerald Inquiry in the Joh years.

There are now 233,673 public servants thanks to Labor’s featherbedding.

Queensland‘s economy has been mismanaged under Jackie Trad. Picture: AAP Image/Dan Peled

Queensland now spends more on public sector employees per capita than any other state.

The public servants become milch cows of the union movement, with millions in union fees channelled to the ALP. Yet despite the extra staff like teachers and nurses, service delivers worsens in key areas like health, education and policing. Why? Add poor management to Palaszczuk’s list of failures.

The new joke also presents a perplexing problem for a future conservative government, because the LNP has promised not to make any public servants redundant.

Shadow Treasurer Tim Mander said Labor’s economic mismanagement over the past five years left Queensland in the worst financial position it has ever been, creating a “massive budget black hole”.

In his report Worrall also warned of the unknown impacts on the bottom line of “additional obligations for the government, including for the class actions from the 2011 floods, and native title compensation claims”.

Nearly 7000 victims of the catastrophic 2011 Brisbane flood have won a historic class action against Seqwater, Sunwater and the Queensland government over the mismanagement management of the Wivenhoe Dam in the 2011.

Compensation payments for damage and loss could run into billions.

Debt is also expected to rise as the government increases spending on major capital works, including the $5.4bn Cross River Rail project.

And where is the Trad-Palaszczuk plan to repair the economy? There doesn’t seem to be one. The pair failed again to front the media.

The Auditor-General is required by law to give advanced copies of his report to Palaszczuk, Trad and other ministers with a request for a comment. “No formal responses were received,” Worrell said in the last line of his report.

The snub is in keeping with the Palaszczuk-Trad comic book approach to politics: Say nothing meaningful that might promote discussion.

Any day now I expect “Princess” Palaszczuk to grab another photo opportunity with Wonder Woman to distract us from her miserable record.

BRICKBATS FOLLOWING BOUQUET

THERE was an amusing declaration in the ­Premier’s Department gift register, where Director-General David Stewart said he had received an unwelcome bunch of flowers.

“Gift not wanted but retained, however. Item is perishable and unable to be returned,” said Stewart. The bouquet was from popular Brisbane entrepreneur, ­Harvey Lister, the boss of the AEG Ogden, the event management colossus promoting the Brisbane Live entertainment precinct in the CBD.

In The Sunday Mail Lister had criticised the government for dragging the chain on his “transformational scheme”, urging the public servants to “just get on with it”.

The flowers arrived days later. I’m told Stewart, an engineer with business degrees, is assessing the project.

His salary package eclipses $750,000, so I expect he can afford his own flowers.

NEW CHALLENGERS ON WINE SCENE

BRISBANE Boys’ College old boy Aleks Balodis has spent recent weeks sniffing and slurping oddball wine varieties.

The talented young sommelier from Stokehouse Q by the river at South Bank will help judge the inaugural Queensland wine challenge, or, to give it its more formal title, the Queensland International Emerging Varieties Wine Challenge. It’s where Queensland vintners pit their more unusual wine varieties against those from overseas.

Stockhouse Q sommelier Aleks Balodis.

Balodis, 29, who trained as a sommelier in London, said he thought Queensland fiano, tempranillo and verdelho would hold their own against those from Europe. And he liked saperavi, the inky red wine originally from Russia.

Mike Hayes, president of the Queensland Wine Industry Association, says 30 different varieties of wine have been entered by 24 Queensland wineries.

He said it was gratifying to discover the entries came not just from the Granite Belt but from the South Burnett and other smaller southeast Queensland producers.

Hayes agrees there is a chance the Queenslanders may go away empty-handed. “But it’s a risk worth taking,” he says.

“I’m just ecstatic with the number of entries we received.

“It is very encouraging for our very first challenge.”

Unusual varieties with names such as malvasia, viognier, albarino, chenin blanc, marsanne, tempranillo, petit manseng, grenache, nero d’avola and malbec will be tasted by the judging panel headed by Tony Harper. Also on the panel will be Ramon Arnavas from Spain and Lim Hwee Peng from Singapore.

Hayes says most of the international varieties this year are from Europe. He says the show is in its infancy and the contestwill broaden next year to include vintages from the Americas – and other states in Australia. Winners will be announced at a gala dinner at Stokehouse Q on February 22. ($120). And there will be a public tasting that day (1.30-4pm, $30). queenslandwine.com.au