To go from milking cows outside Jondaryan to overseeing a $500 billion economy from the William Street “Tower of Power’’ requires something of a journey and for Queensland Treasurer, David Janetzki, it’s been a rather enthralling one.
Few Treasurers, state or federal, could claim a familiarity with the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, fewer still could distinguish a Lyric Coloratura Soprano from a Dramatic, and none could turn their backs on their structural deficits and mid-year-economic-reviews to hit the road, making a living playing the piano.
Janetzki, this once low profile “Oakey’’ boy from the Darling Downs, can and could, though he would insist he could never quite give Elton John a run for his money on the keyboards.
This remarkable and still youthful man who popped into Queensland’s collective consciousness the night of the state election when he appeared as a panellist on the ABC, sparring with his counterpart Labor Treasurer Cameron Dick, has already found himself at the centre of the rough and tumble of Queensland political life.
Last month’s recent news that he might need to find $24bn to cover the cost of project blowouts (given the LNP has pledged not to slug us with tax hikes or cut services) is just one of thousands of conundrums about to come across his desk on a weekly basis over the next four years.
But, in late December, over superbly prepared Eye Fillets at the magnificent Fire and Ice Restaurant at Toowoomba’s Southern Hotel, the newly minted Treasurer is just easing into the job, and ready to hit the fiscal ball back into Labor’s court with just four words:
“Where’s the $70 billion?’’
Labor Treasurer Cameron Dick collected $70 billion more in revenue than was predicted in the 2020 budget, he points out evenly.
“My question is, where has the $70 billion gone?
“We have record ambulance ramping, and record numbers of victims of crime, it doesn’t appear to have gone into fixing those problems.’’
Wasting money is one of the reasons Janetzki is so gung ho about the re-establishment of a Queensland Productivity Commission - a body which could, theoretically, take him to task if he starts frittering it away as he believes his predecessors have been.
It probably won’t.
The legislation the LNP has already introduced makes it clear that the Treasurer will direct what the new Productivity Commission investigates, and that will far more likely be cost blow outs on government construction jobs rather than expenditure decisions made inside the Treasurer’s office.
But the notion of a fresh layer of accountability and oversight which may well outlast this government is what attracts him to the idea.
As his new responsibilities dawn, he’s probably missing life on the farm.
His German ancestors were already on the Darling Downs before the 20th Century arrived, and perhaps his most treasured possessions are childhood memories of a rustic life which was probably already deeply embedded in his DNA.
One memory, which might be said to be his political awakening, speaks of pure, unadulterated mid-20th Century Queensland.
He was watching his father milking cows on the family farm near Jondaryan one afternoon somewhere in 1986 when his mum suddenly bundled him into the family car and drove him to the Maclagan Hall at the foot of the Bunya Mountains where then Queensland Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was delivering a speech.
It was the first moment that the boy, no more than eight years old, became conscious of a life beyond the farm and it had little to do with Sir Joh’s speech, the contents of which he has no memory of.
It was the buzz of the hall that got him in - the sound of rural people just like his own mum and dad gathered together and discussing things impacting their lives.
“That was the first time I experienced what you might call politics,’’ he recalls.
The murmurings of the ordinary folk in Maclagan Hall were just a wider illustration of the then eight-year-old’s place in the world.
He was a member of an observant, Lutheran family living in a tightly woven farming community where people relied somewhat on the old Country Party or the Nationals, but mostly on each other.
“I think that upbringing - rural life, growing up on a farm was - was something that I was privileged to be part of,’’ he says.
“When I look back, community was everything. If you didn’t support one another, communities would simply not have worked.’’
But his dad Dennis, a practical man who over the decades played key executive roles in agricultural shows in the Darling Downs region, was determined to steer his boy away from farming.
“If you really want to be a dairy farmer, move to Victoria where it rains,’’ was one common refrain.
His mum, Leonie, believed education was the pathway to advancement and gently pushed her children into learning and so, when the high school years arrived, Janetzki went off to Concordia Lutheran College in Toowoomba.
He was an exceptional cricketer, travelling the state with his team, and a talented pianist as well as Head Boarder Boy and School Captain.
But perhaps the most important date he had with destiny in those adolescent years was the meeting he had with wife-to-be, Mel, a local girl who had a God-given gift as an opera singer.
The two married young and although Janetzki was starting his law career with a Brisbane firm the couple decided that Mel’s talent had to be given full rein, and they headed for London.
He worked in commercial law and litigation, but his career took something of a back seat as Melinda Janetzki’s talent propelled her admiring husband through the opera houses of Europe for three years, the glamour sometimes a little overwhelming for both of them.
‘’When I was a kid, a trip to Oakey was the big smoke,’’ he says.
“Yet there we were, we were 25 and it was absolutely wonderful. We saw Europe together.’’
When their first child arrived, they decided to turn their back on all the enchantment, return home to Toowoomba and build a family as Janetzki took a job as general counsel at Heritage Bank.
He did end up on the board of Opera Queensland, and he and Mel managed to extend the glamour of their European experience by carolling in Toowoomba aged care facilities at Christmas times.
“She sings, I play.
“I am not in her league, but the audience seems to enjoy it.’’
At 8pm on September 9, 2006, he watched on television LNP leader Lawrence Springborg deliver his concession speech as Premier Peter Beattie won the election, and experienced a sort of low-key epiphany which probably had its origins 30 years ago back in Maclagan Hall.
He wanted to get involved in politics.
“Lawrence Springborg was the best premier we never had, and watching him deliver that concession speech in 2006, I just respected him so much.
“I just thought, ‘I want to make a contribution,’ but at that moment I had no plans to do it, I didn’t know what I would do, I would have been happy to just hand out how-to-vote cards.’’
He did more than hand out how-to-vote cards. He won the 2016 Toowoomba South state by-election, caught the eye of future Premier David Crisafulli, and now he’s in charge of the state’s finances.
So what economic direction does he intend taking Queensland in?
He’s interested in the grand economic narratives of the “Friedman, Keynes, Hayek’’ persuasions but was more enamoured with the straightforward world he discovered in Australian Economic History classes he took at the University of Queensland.
“I enjoyed the truthfulness - it told us about ourselves,’’ he recalls.
“The Queensland economy, whether people like it or not, is based on resources, agriculture and tourism, you know, those key basics.
“Our terms of trade are strengthened by the agricultural sector, the resources sector pays for roads schools, the dams the bridges, just key things that we have to accept.’’
“I liked that subject, it spoke to my rural upbringing.’’
Broadly, the LNP wants a lighter regulatory touch on the economy, an emphasis on individuals making things happen in the world rather than governments, lower taxation and, as a return of the Productivity Commission suggests, a more considered use of the peoples’ money.
As for this week’s black hole revelations which appear with disturbing regularity after every election, state and federal, Janetzki insists the LNP has a plan as it pursues the Triple A credit rating we lost 16 years ago.
“Debt can be lower if you stop the blow outs, grow the economy, respect taxpayers’ money and increase the capacity for the public service to deliver projects on time and on budget,’’ he says.
“Under the former Labor Government, debt was on an unprecedented trajectory.’’
With a faint echo of Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen in the air, Janetzki also declares he wants Queensland to become a magnet for the movers and the shakers of the world, the robust spirits of free enterprise.
“I am a competitive federalist,’’ he says.
“I want capital coming to Queensland, I want business coming to Queensland.
“If a Victorian-based business does not want to stay in Victoria, you’re welcome here.
“The message I’m driving home is this:
“We are open for business!’’
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