Editorial: Labor’s record means it’s time to give the LNP a go

Queenslanders have warmed to Steven Miles, but based on Labor’s track record it is time to give the other mob a go, writes the editor.

Premier Steven Miles, on the Sunshine Coast on Thursday, has made quite a fist of the campaign. Picture: Adam Head

Labor’s desperation to make this a popularity contest between the two leaders is all the evidence any voter should need as to why Queensland deserves a new government at this critical point in our state’s history.

After a full decade in power, the government’s senior leadership team is now asking for four more years to fix the problems that their decisions around the Cabinet table either created, or failed to address.

Their pleas have been backed by scare campaigns built on only a skerrick of truth that are a blight on state Labor, its leader Steven Miles, and the union bosses who have benefited from a decade of access to the top floors of 1 William St.

Labor has been assisted in this strategy by a disappointing LNP campaign that has been too light on detail on the big issues, including the question marks that still hang over abortion law reform and over the lack of detail on plans for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Labor has consequently ruthlessly won this campaign. But that should not distract from the core question that must be in the mind of every voter when they pick up that pencil in the ballot box: does this mob deserve another term? The answer, on pretty well every measure, is no.

Labor’s biggest achievements in office have been restricted to social reforms, from the legalisation of abortion and sex work to the green-lighting of voluntary assisted dying.

But their bleeding-heart attitude to how the justice system should treat youth offenders – and their total unwillingness to lean into early intervention programs – has fuelled the crime crisis that will determine many votes tomorrow.

As Premier during the pandemic, Annastacia Palaszczuk read the room and kept Queenslanders safe – if only from the long lockdowns that residents of the southern states endured. That delivered her victory in the 2020 election, a contest Labor would have otherwise likely lost.

But, post-pandemic, the wheels fell off. Ms Palaszczuk’s haughtiness and apparent growing disinterest in the detail saw her become isolated – punishing ministerial colleagues and delaying their Cabinet submissions for the merest of perceived slights, and surrounding herself with a small coterie of advisers trusted because of their sycophancy.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has lost ground during his small-target campaign. Picture: Liam Kidston

Queenslanders are today paying the price of that culture of inaction. For instance, in early 2022 The Courier-Mail’s reporting on the early signs of what is now a full-blown housing crisis led Ms Palaszczuk to set up a summit “to find sustainable, tangible, workable solutions to the challenges”. But nothing of consequence was ever enacted, and two years on there are now fewer homes being built here than at any time since 2013.

Meanwhile, construction costs have skyrocketed – thanks to the extraordinarily generous deals the government gave the now-outlawed militant construction union, the CFMEU. These have distorted the cost of labour and productivity across the entire building sector.

Those ridiculously generous deals (hidden under the very Orwellian label of “Best Practice Industry Conditions”) were just the latest evidence of a cavalier approach to the spending of taxpayer money.

Economically, the Palaszczuk/Miles government has been a failure – somehow managing, for instance, to put more than $9bn extra on the public credit card last year just to cover stock-standard expenses, despite having raked in an additional $11bn in revenue from a new tax imposed without consultation on the state’s metallurgical coal miners.

Due process has also meant little to this government, despite its lip service to such ideals. Queensland Labor has always seen winning as everything, prioritising elections over good governance – and have had no qualms in changing electoral laws to give them an advantage.

For instance, in 2016 they moved late one night in parliament – with no consultation – to discard the optional preferential voting system recommended by the Fitzgerald corruption inquiry for a system that helps Labor’s chances by making it compulsory to mark every square.

Economically, the government of Annastacia Palaszczuk and her successor Steven Miles has been a failure.

They also sniffed an opportunity when the corruption watchdog uncovered dodgy deals between some property developers and some local government councillors. Their response was to ban any developers – who tend to back the LNP – from donating to any state political party, while increasing what the unions – who always back Labor – can donate. The result is, as Opposition Leader David Crisafulli correctly points out, an “electoral financial gerrymander”.

Since taking office last December, Premier Miles has tried to convince Queenslanders that he had nothing to do with all of these bad calls, despite being deputy premier in the worst years of the Palaszczuk administration. He claims that his approach over the 11 months he has been in the top job has been a fresh one that voters should reward in expectation of more to come.

But Mr Miles’s record in office so far has been undistinguished, at least beyond his game-changing flat 50c fares on public transport.

As premier, Mr Miles has burned $2.5bn on a once-off $1000 power bill rebate for every household, no matter their financial position. He has dumped plans for a new stadium at the Gabba in favour of wasting $1.6bn on a temporary facility on the site of the old QEII Stadium in Brisbane’s southern suburbs. And he has enthusiastically pursued a renewable energy plan that has as its centrepiece an untested pumped hydro scheme that could cost $24bn.

The Premier’s vision that he is seeking a mandate for is also a big-spending one, which would see the state spending more than it earns for too long into the future. It is also one that leans far too much on plans to nationalise services than is suitable for modern-day Queensland.

It promises state-owned service stations and general practitioner clinics, a new government-owned energy retailer to compete against the existing government-owned regional energy retailer, and free school lunches for every single child who attends a state primary school.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli at pre-polling at Carseldine in Brisbane’s north. Picture: Liam Kidston

None has been accompanied by any necessary detail, other than that more borrowings would fund them.

It is a shame that the Premier’s big ideas are so problematic, because he is a genuinely good person – and that is something voters have come to see during the campaign. He is a rare politician in that what you see is genuinely what you get.

LNP leader David Crisafulli is, meanwhile, a driven career politician from central casting. His work ethic? Extraordinary. His understandable determination to run a small-target strategy? Frustrating, and hubristic.

Mr Crisafulli would respond to that by saying he is focused on a plan for addressing the key issues: youth crime, cost of living, housing and healthcare. And indeed, the pledges he has made support this argument.

But voters will cast their ballots without knowing what the LNP’s broader vision is for Queensland. Considering all the work that must be done, this is a real shame.

It is little wonder Labor is keen to paint this election as a fight about the future, rather than a referendum on their performance in office. But the past four years have been a mess on pretty well every measure. And the bigger-government vision spelled out by the Premier is the wrong approach for this great state.

Queenslanders have warmed to Steven Miles, but this has hardly cooled their mood for change. Based on Labor’s track record, it is time to give the other mob a crack.

But we say that while also urging the – likely – incoming Crisafulli government of the need to work hard and stay focused on driving this state’s great potential forward, rather than using the gift of office to pursue their own ideological or political agendas.

Queenslanders showed in 2015 how they view that attitude.

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