Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he's still hoping to get into Queensland during the state election campaign, declaring that if Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is 'for jobs' she'll reopen the border. FOLLOW OUR LIVE BLOG
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he hopes to visit Queensland during the state election campaign and that if Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is “for jobs” she needs to reopen the border.
A day after state LNP Leader Deb Frecklington said she was looking forward to campaigning with the PM, Mr Morrison stopped short of committing to a trip north but said “you never know”.
“I would love to get up to Queensland,” he told 4BC.
“I've missed being able to get up to Queensland.”
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Meanwhile, opposition leader Deb Frecklington has hit back at claims from Treasurer Cameron Dick that the LNP’s Bruce Highway duplication plans were a “highway hoax”, saying she was excited Prime Minister Scott Morrison had backed in the proposal while they were in opposition.
The Federal Government has announced it will chip in $20 million for the highway study.
“The Bruce Highway pledge from the Morrison Government is so welcomed by the LNP team,” Ms Frecklington said.
The project would cost $33 billion over 15 years, with the LNP wanting an 80:20 federal funding arrangement. Mr Dick earlier today labelled the plan 'a hoax'.
“Deb Frecklington’s Bruce Highway plan has turned into a highway hoax,” Mr Dick said.
“The Federal Government promised, not $26bn, they promised $20m, which is enough to build 900m of bitumen, and so, what we heard on the radio today…we heard Tim Mander, the shadow treasurer, double down.”
“He committed again on radio this morning to delivering the $33bn plan. They’ve got $20m from the federal government, to deliver a $33bn plan over 15 years. The way you do that is by using natural attrition.”
Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington. Picture: Zak Simmonds
Earlier today, Queensland’s Premier says she will work “right up until Christmas” to deliver a budget for the state, should she be returned to power on October 31.
Annastacia Palaszczuk began the second day of the state election campaign trail in Mt Isa, north west Queensland.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says if re-elected she will work right up until Christmas to deliver a budget. Picture: Dan Peled
The seat of Traeger is the state’s safest seat, held by Robbie Katter of Katter’s Australian Party with a margin of 28.5 per cent.In the lead up to the campaign, Ms Palaszczuk has been criticised by Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington for “not having a budget”, however Ms Palaszczuk has been quick to respond.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she'll work right up until Christmas to deliver a budget. Picture: Jono Searle
“You don’t get the figures until the federal budget comes out. Now that’s out, we can be certain about forward estimates,” she told ABC Radio on Wednesday morning.
“If we are re-elected, we will have the budget before the end of the year … We will work right up until Christmas if we have to.”Ms Palaszczuk also told ABC Radio that she expects the campaign against her in the upcoming state election to be “nasty and personal.”
The majority of voters don’t trust Deb Frecklington to run the state’s economic recovery, according to The Courier-Mail’s YouGov Poll.
Ms Palaszczuk’s budget pledge comes as a new YouGov poll, carried out by The Courier Mail, reveals Queenslanders trust Ms Palaszczuk’s Labor Party over Ms Frecklington’s LNP to manage the state’s economic recovery and create jobs.
The Premier’s dominance on the topic of the economy extends to every region across the state, according to the poll, with 40 per cent of the 2000 respondents favouring Ms Palaszczuk, compared to 27 per cent for the LNP.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he hopes to visit Queensland during the state election campaign and that if Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is “for jobs” she needs to reopen the border.
A day after state LNP Leader Deb Frecklington said she was looking forward to campaigning with the PM, Mr Morrison stopped short of committing to a trip north but said “you never know”.
“I would love to get up to Queensland,” he told 4BC.
“I've missed being able to get up to Queensland.”
The possibility of Mr Morrison even entering Queensland seemed unlikely while NSW and the ACT were declared hot spots.
But the Queensland Government’s decision to remove the ACT’s hot spot listing last month opened the way for Mr Morrison to visit Queensland as long as he had spent the previous 14 days outside NSW.
The Courier-Mail understands Mr Morrison could have met that requirement by as early as Friday and his presence would provide a welcome boost to the LNP’s campaign.
When quizzed on radio about when he could visit the state he said only that he had been in Canberra “for a while now, preparing for this Budget”.
“In Queensland, in particular, the tourism and hospitality industry and the aviation industry has taken an enormous hit and so that's why, you know, I've been keen to see things open up in Queensland,” he said.
“I mean, it’s for the Queensland Premier to decide how long she keeps Queensland shut but if you're for jobs, you need to open.”
LNP leader Deb Frecklington told ABC Radio on Tuesday it would be “wonderful” if Mr Morrison joined her on the campaign trail but: “when that is … will be announced by the Prime Minister”.
Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is unlikely to visit Queensland before the election as he was in Sydney last Sunday.
If he stays in Canberra following the Budget, the first day he could enter Queensland would be Monday, October 19 however the date clashes with another week of Parliament.
The Courier-Mail understands Queensland Labor has requested that Mr Albanese does not join the Premier on the campaign trail.
– Michael Wray
Scott Morrison misses Queensland
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he hopes to visit Queensland during the state election campaign and that if Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is “for jobs” she needs to reopen the border.
A day after state LNP Leader Deb Frecklington said she was looking forward to campaigning with the PM, Mr Morrison stopped short of committing to a trip north but said “you never know”.
“I would love to get up to Queensland,” he told 4BC.
“I've missed being able to get up to Queensland.”
The possibility of Mr Morrison even entering Queensland seemed unlikely while NSW and the ACT were declared hot spots.
But the Queensland Government’s decision to remove the ACT’s hot spot listing last month opened the way for Mr Morrison to visit Queensland as long as he had spent the previous 14 days outside NSW.
The Courier-Mail understands Mr Morrison could have met that requirement by as early as Friday and his presence would provide a welcome boost to the LNP’s campaign.
When quizzed on radio about when he could visit the state he said only that he had been in Canberra “for a while now, preparing for this Budget”.
“In Queensland, in particular, the tourism and hospitality industry and the aviation industry has taken an enormous hit and so that's why, you know, I've been keen to see things open up in Queensland,” he said.
“I mean, it’s for the Queensland Premier to decide how long she keeps Queensland shut but if you're for jobs, you need to open.”
LNP leader Deb Frecklington told ABC Radio on Tuesday it would be “wonderful” if Mr Morrison joined her on the campaign trail but: “when that is … will be announced by the Prime Minister”.
Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is unlikely to visit Queensland before the election as he was in Sydney last Sunday.
If he stays in Canberra following the Budget, the first day he could enter Queensland would be Monday, October 19 however the date clashes with another week of Parliament.
The Courier-Mail understands Queensland Labor has requested that Mr Albanese does not join the Premier on the campaign trail.
– Michael Wray
LNP rules out public service cuts
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LNP Leader Deb Frecklington has quashed claims of public service jobs cuts, insisting there will be no voluntary or forced redundancies to pay for their commitments with the party to grow frontline services.
“We’ve already announced that we’re going to grow our frontline services, more teachers, more doctors, more nurses, more coppers,” she said.
“The Labor Party has already announced that this is their policy – they’ve already announced as a saving measure that they will, they are offering voluntary redundancies.
“What I can say is we won’t be offering that and will be ruling out any forced redundancies.”
'Pathway to victory': Why Townsville is key
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Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has landed in Townsville, the north Queensland city that will prove critical to the election result.
Labor holds all three of Townsville’s marginal electorates – all on slim margins less than 4.5 per cent – and could lose its entire two-seat majority here.
Townsville (Labor 0.38 per cent), Mundingburra (1.13 per cent) and Thuringowa (4.15 per cent) are all considered must-win seats for Ms Palaszczuk’s Labor to hold government.
The task is made more complicated in Mundingburra, where the Labor incumbent, Communities Minister Coralee O’Rourke, is retiring due to ill-health. The LNP is running a senior serving police officer, Glenn Doyle, in the seat, highlighting the hot-button issue of crime in Townsville.
Labor holds 48 of the parliament’s 93 electorates, a two-seat majority, with the LNP on 38. The Opposition needs a net gain of nine seats to win majority government.
As one Labor insider told The Australian: “if you think about pathways to victory, everything goes through Townsville”.
“If the government can hold one or two seats in Townsville, then it’s hard to find a pathway to government for the LNP. If Townsville is a wipeout (for Labor) then it starts to get very messy,” the Labor source said.
Ms Palaszczuk’s Mount Isa (Traeger, Katter’s Australian Party, 28.49 per cent) announcements also have strong links to Townsville.
She said the government had entered into an agreement with the proponents of the proposed $1.7bn CopperString 2.0 project, a high-voltage 1100km transmission line that would run between Townsville and the north-west minerals province around Mount Isa to deliver cheaper power to new mines.
The idea is the powerline would connect the burgeoning resources province with the electricity grid in Townsville.
“This is a great initiative for the north and north-west…it is visionary and nation-building,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
But it is not clear whether any financial commitment – in terms of money on the table – has been made to CopperString as part of the fresh agreement.
Treasurer Cameron Dick said the government would “underwrite” the initial investment to give private investors more confidence in the scheme. The state government had previously given the company early $16m.
A statement from the government said: “Under an implementation agreement completed with the proponent CopperString last week, the government will underwrite additional multi-million-dollar development costs, including completing the environmental impact study presently underway”.
CopperString director Joseph O’Brien – a relative of key crossbencher Robbie Katter – said the agreement was a “valuable confidence boost” for minerals and clean-energy projects considering using the proposed network between Townsville and Mount Isa.
The prospective customers are Dugald River mine operator MMG, manufacturer Incitec Pivot, Glencore’s Queensland Metals, New Century Resources, and Chinova Resources.
And Ms Palaszczuk also spruiked a pre-election commitment to Glencore, which runs Mount Isa’s copper smelter and Townsville’s copper refinery, in which the government gave a “commercial in confidence” amount of taxpayers’ money to the mining giant. The funding was to pay for the four-yearly “rebricking” and maintenance work at Glencore’s smelter which was due in September next year.
Ms Palaszczuk has repeatedly refused to say how much funding would be directed to Glencore for the project.
Mount Isa mayor Danielle Slade said on Wednesday: “the Premier and her Cabinet definitely saved the day in Mount Isa”.
– Sarah Elks
LNP to slash manufacturing electricity costs
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Queensland manufacturing businesses will have their electricity bills slashed by about 20 percent over four years under an LNP Government.
Visiting Watkins Steel in the safe Labor seat of Nudgee, Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington with deputy Tim Mander and local candidate Ryan Shaw announced the mammoth $493 million election commitment would help 16,000 businesses.
Leanne Linard holds the seat in Brisbane’s north by a margin of 14.32 per cent.
Under the proposal, a $493 million Community Service Obligation would be provided to government-owned corporation Energy Queensland, with Ms Frecklington assuring those 7300 associated public servants that their jobs were secure.
The CSO will remove the need to charge manufacturing businesses a rate of return on energy provided through the distribution networks.
Ms Frecklington said dragging Queensland out of recession started with supercharging the manufacturing industry.
“This is about securing the 163,000 Queenslanders right now who work in manufacturing,” she said.
“But it is also about growing the manufacturing industry by 20,000 jobs.”
Ms Frecklington said the LNP would pay for the half a billion dollar commitment by growing the economy, with further details to be provided when the party releases its election commitment costings.
She defended the decision not to release the costings until the last week of the campaign, saying it was standard practice.
– Domanii Cameron
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk could not confirm whether Labor would put Katter’s Australian Party and the Greens ahead of the LNP in the key marginal seats of Hinchinbrook and Maiwar.
After slamming the LNP for vowing to put Labor last across the state, insisting it was a “recipe for chaos and disaster”, Ms Palaszczuk was cagey about her party’s plans.
“I don’t have that information, but let me say very clearly that One Nation will be last,” she said.
– Sarah Elks
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has denied her backing of the Copperstring project is a way of “buttering up” crucial crossbencher Robbie Katter in the event of a hung parliament.
Ms Palaszczuk and Treasurer Cameron Dick are in Mount Isa at the Glencore copper smelter on day two of the Queensland election campaign to announce an agreement with the $1.8 billion Copperstring project, which aims to eventually deliver cheaper power for new mines in the state’s north-west minerals province.
The project has long been advocated for by local member for Traeger Robbie Katter (who holds the seat on a massive margin of 28.49 per cent), leader of the Katter’s Australian Party, who commands three of the seven votes on the current crossbench.
Ms Palaszczuk was whether the Copperstring backing – which will take the form of the government underwriting the process to give investors confidence in the project, without actual further taxpayer funding – was to “butter up” Mr Katter if the October 31 election ends up in a hung parliament”.
“Definitely not, this has been something that my government has championed, every single step of the way,” she said.
She said it was not a way of getting on Mr Katter’s “good side” and said she had not spoken to him about today’s announcement but “at some stage, someone will talk to him”.
“This is something we’ve been focused on for a long, long time. It’s been something that’s been raised with us by the proponents, we’ve been working with them, and as you can see, even the federal government, in its budget last night, is coming on board.”
– Sarah Elks
'One Nation will be last': Premier's preference stance
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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk could not confirm whether Labor would put Katter’s Australian Party and the Greens ahead of the LNP in the key marginal seats of Hinchinbrook and Maiwar.
After slamming the LNP for vowing to put Labor last across the state, insisting it was a “recipe for chaos and disaster”, Ms Palaszczuk was cagey about her party’s plans.
“I don’t have that information, but let me say very clearly that One Nation will be last,” she said.
– Sarah Elks
Premier accused of 'buttering up' KAP
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Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has denied her backing of the Copperstring project is a way of “buttering up” crucial crossbencher Robbie Katter in the event of a hung parliament.
Ms Palaszczuk and Treasurer Cameron Dick are in Mount Isa at the Glencore copper smelter on day two of the Queensland election campaign to announce an agreement with the $1.8 billion Copperstring project, which aims to eventually deliver cheaper power for new mines in the state’s north-west minerals province.
The project has long been advocated for by local member for Traeger Robbie Katter (who holds the seat on a massive margin of 28.49 per cent), leader of the Katter’s Australian Party, who commands three of the seven votes on the current crossbench.
Ms Palaszczuk was whether the Copperstring backing – which will take the form of the government underwriting the process to give investors confidence in the project, without actual further taxpayer funding – was to “butter up” Mr Katter if the October 31 election ends up in a hung parliament”.
“Definitely not, this has been something that my government has championed, every single step of the way,” she said.
She said it was not a way of getting on Mr Katter’s “good side” and said she had not spoken to him about today’s announcement but “at some stage, someone will talk to him”.
“This is something we’ve been focused on for a long, long time. It’s been something that’s been raised with us by the proponents, we’ve been working with them, and as you can see, even the federal government, in its budget last night, is coming on board.”
– Sarah Elks
Qld Premier claims state has been 'consistent' on border closures
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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has once again defended her tough border stance after announcing the NSW-QLD border would open the day after the election.
“Of course I did have to make some strong decisions about those borders and they were tough on a lot of people, but we’ve put in place a roadmap right until December to give everyone certainty,” she told Channel Seven's Sunrise.
“We have been very consistent, all of our decisions have been made at the end of every month."
Despite Queensland's unemployment rate hiting 7.5 per cent, the nation's worst jobs figures, Ms Palaszczuk said her government had created more than 250,000 jobs over the last five years.
“We were on the path to prosperity, what happened is we were hit with Coronavirus. We had to go into lockdown and businesses have struggled,” she said.
She said Queensland depended heavily on international tourism.
“It is going to take time for the tourism industry to recover.”
