Shannon Fentiman demands LNP release MYFER

Premier David Crisafulli and Treasurer David Janetzki told to ‘get off the beach’ and deliver a critical budget update delayed for the first time outside a natural disaster or Covid-19.

Shadow treasurer Shannon Fentiman on Sunday. Picture: Richard Walker

Shadow treasurer Shannon Fentiman has told Premier David Crisafulli and Treasurer David Janetzki to “get off the beach” and deliver a critical update that has been delayed for the first time outside a natural disaster or Covid-19.

But Mr Janetzki says it will be handed down as planned this month.

The Mid-Year Financial and Economic Review update had been pushed back to January by Mr Janetzki, who is on leave until next week, with Ms Fentiman saying only in extreme circumstances such as the pandemic had a government postponed the review.

“Every government releases the budget update in December,” she said.

“We’re in the second week of January, still no sign of the Treasurer or the budget update - so what is their excuse?”

Ms Fentiman argued Queensland Treasury would have already done most of the work to update the state’s financial position and questioned why the government hadn’t released it.

“There is no reason they cannot release this today. You know, I don’t know why they continue to put off releasing this budget update. Is it because we’ve already seen them laying the groundwork for significant cuts?”

“Instead of their obsession with scoring cheap political points against Labor, the LNP should govern,” she said.

“The LNP have spent their first month laying the groundwork for cuts, and it’s clear they’re getting the books ready to axe more programs and projects.”

Ms Fentiman said she did not think it was reasonable to delay the budget update and that every other government in the last 20 years had delivered it in December.

“That’s when budget updates are due,” she said.

“Only in extreme circumstances like the pandemic has a government postponed MYFER, so what are the LNP hiding – is it cuts or their gaffe-prone Treasurer?”

Treasurer David Janetzki

But Treasurer David Janetzki said the mid-year budget update would be handed down as planned this month.

“If Shannon Fentiman had been paying attention, she would already know that I announced in November MYFER would be delivered in second half of January,” he said.

Mr Janetzki said the review would be delivered within the traditional reporting requirements.

“We need to ensure we have all the facts about Labor’s blowouts before we update Queenslanders,” he said.

“Every day has revealed a new blowout and budget black hole that has been left to us to fix.

“The Crisafulli government has been working tirelessly to unravel the unprecedented mess left to this state by the former Labor government.

“What we’ve uncovered to date has been nothing short of astonishing regarding the fiscal vandalism at the hands of (former premier) Steven Miles and (former treasurer) Cameron Dick.”

Health Minister Tim Nicholls said it would take some time to present a review that took into account Labor’s budget fudges.

“As we’re going through each of the departments, we’re finding more and more Labor budget overspends,” Mr Nicholls said.

Mr Nicholls said mid-year economic forecasts were given in either December or January, depending on the circumstances.

“When it comes to the Labor opposition, they have no credibility on finances,” he said.

“We know that they failed to properly budget for the delivery of the hospital’s capacity expansion program by $6 billion, we know they’ve over committed the health budget by $12 billion, we know that they have underfunded projects such as Cross River Rail by many billions of dollars,” he said.

Mr Nicholls said the health department remained committed to spending every cent that was in the budget in relation to the delivery of health services throughout Queensland.

“We’ve found additional funds for things like the flu vaccine,” he said.

“We’re continuing to invest in a number of services.”

Originally published as Shannon Fentiman demands LNP release MYFER