Des Houghton: Time to end Qld Labor’s binge on welfare, including free school lunches

If I lived in a place where the state has to step in to feed schoolchildren I’d be embarrassed, Des Houghton argues.

The Palaszczuk-Miles era has left Queensland woke and broke. A decade of Labor governments has also turned us into a nanny state.

I fear Labor is killing the incentive to work. More and more are expecting freebies, and the snivelling left is happy to oblige.

Anyone for free spectacles, free immunisations, free education, free traineeships, free tampons, public transport discounts or subsidised swimming lessons?

Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Roll up for your energy rebate and your car rego discount. Anyone for free housing? Oops, we forgot to build those.

I also fear the state has usurped the role of the family by offering free breakfasts and free after-school activities across Queensland.

It might be cruel to say so but if parents can’t be bothered, or are unable to feed and clothe their children, they really ought to consider whether they are fit to have children in the first place.

Does Queensland Premier Steven Miles have more solutions? Picture, John Gass

Having breakfast and dinner with family and loved ones is one of the joys of family life.

I’m guessing that many drug-addled and alcoholic parents will be happy to outsource their childrearing to the state. What a tragedy.

Some schools are now offering free lunches as well as free breakfasts.

The truth is there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The trouble with socialism, as Margaret Thatcher famously reminded us, is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

The ALP welfare binge has gone too far and is one of the reasons why the Queensland budget blew out by $9.07bn last financial year.

And Labor’s reckless spending binge is driving us deeper and deeper into debt.

I got a glimpse of the attack on family life in a boastful press release that students in more than 400 schools were given 1.3 million free breakfasts last year.

Taxpayers are being ripped off with funds flowing to something called the School and Community Food Taskforce.

One school receiving handouts was Nerang State High School, where breakfasts are offered four days a week, Monday to Thursday.

“Here, around 70 students each day get a good meal before they head into class,” the press statement said.

It seems the school food program is a growth industry, with 499 schools enlisted so far this year.

I had a trawl through the list, and I see most funding goes to state schools in ALP electorates, especially those in metropolitan Brisbane, Townsville and the regions where the Labor Party is desperate to save seats from the Crisafulli juggernaut.

Frankly, if I lived at Redcliffe, Bracken Ridge, Brisbane Central, Bundaberg, Townsville or Mitchelton, I’d be ashamed and embarrassed that my neighbours hadn’t bothered to arrange
their affairs to be able to send their children off to school with full bellies.

Steven Miles’ vote-buying welfare binge and a top-up in fat cat bureaucrats’ salaries are reasons why the Queensland budget blew out by $9.07bn last financial year.

Leader of the Opposition David Crisafulli has been able to sit back and watch Labor flounder. Picture: Liam Kidston

The $1000 energy rebates alone cost more than $2bn, the documents show. So did government department expenses.

The energy rebates, wages for a ballooning public service workforce and infrastructure projects were the main factors behind the budget blowout, The Courier-Mail reported.

And analysis of the financial records shows the figure could have been higher if certain big-ticket projects weren’t falling behind schedule.

The Miles cost-of-living spending spree was designed to divert the media from reporting violent youth home invasions, hospital and ambulance failures where delays mean the chance of surviving a heart attack is about 50-50, and where battlers live in tents because not enough homes were built.

But that tactic has failed.

With the election a month away, Labor has nowhere to hide. Labor ministers have not spent their time in office wisely, often presenting a spectacle of arrogance, incompetence and stupidity.

When the left took over the ALP, the moral posturing began. One bloc seemed to think gender issues were more important than people dying waiting for ambulances.

Not surprisingly, the opinion polls remain stubbornly against Labor, with more than two thirds of voters saying they will not give the ALP their first-preference vote.

The latest Newspoll published by The Australian showed the LNP with an unassailable 10-point lead after preferences, putting Labor on track for an embarrassing defeat.

The swing against Labor would wipe out 20 ALP seats, including five held by ministers.

Labor would be reduced to just
31 seats in the single-chamber parliament.

As the campaign drags on Miles is looking weaker and weaker. He has no answers. He has little to say that makes sense. And he has no vision for the future, perhaps because he realises he will not be part of it.

And now he is resorting to nasty little personal digs at his opponent David Crisafulli.

But the mud isn’t sticking.

Irritant of the week

Labor’s childish ad hominem attacks on David Crisafulli on social media. Bereft of ideas the pathetic ALP is playing the man, not the ball.

Originally published as Des Houghton: Time to end Qld Labor’s binge on welfare, including free school lunches