LNP to ‘flatten’ spending on consultants to help fund election pledges

The news

A Queensland LNP government would “stabilise” spending on external consultants and contractors to help pay for their $7.1 billion in costed election pledges, the shadow treasurer says.

David Janetzki used an oft-repeated phrase to declare the LNP’s promises were “fully costed and fully funded”, adding that they would be paid for via a federal-Labor-inspired effort to do more work in house.

Opposition treasury spokesman David Janetzki delivered the LNP’s election policy costings on Thursday – without leader David Crisafulli by his side.Credit: Brisbane Times

But his party’s acceptance of the last Labor budget means promised lower debt will only be marginally so, and the LNP’s costings do not include likely contributions to key renewable energy projects.

Treasurer Cameron Dick has also questioned how the state’s crackdown on external costs could claw back more than the larger federal government’s effort – again raising the spectre of cuts.

Why it matters

LNP leader David Crisafulli has sought to banish Newman-era ghosts by “empower[ing] the public service”, while also vowing to lower debt, reduce taxes, and promising no asset sales or forced redundancies.

After pledging a debt-reduction plan for months, Thursday’s announcement coincided with the formal tally of LNP promises, as Labor put a full-stop on its own real-time updated figure.

While both major party leaders plan a last-minute seat-hopping blitz until the close of polls at 6pm on Saturday, more than 1.2 million voters – or one-third of those enrolled – have already voted.

What they said

Janetzki said the forecast $6.8 billion in external cost savings would come from capping what he estimated would be spent on consultants, based on a trend from a recent audit office report.

If the LNP wins power, they would cap spending this year at the 2022-23 level of about $3 billion, with the cap dropping closer to $2.5 billion each year beyond that.

“We’re not cutting consultants, we’re flattening the trajectory of their growth,” Janetzki told journalists.

The consultants’ work would instead be done either within existing public service budgets or by a new Queensland government agency to be set up in Treasury or the Queensland Treasury Corporation.

That agency, modelled on federal Labor’s Australian Government Consulting, which itself was based on a failed and shuttered UK iteration, would be funded to the tune of $87 million over four years.

Janetzki acknowledged such a unit already existed within QTC, but said the LNP’s version would be “front and centre”.

“This is sending a very clear message, based on the Coaldrake [report] recommendation, that you need to put this at the heart of delivering an empowered public service,” he said.

Further savings would come from dumping $925 million in budgeted spending on Labor’s flagship energy transition project, the $12 billion Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro site.

While his budget uses a still-unconfirmed increased cost of $24 billion for that project – to inflate Labor’s $9 billion election-pledge-boosted debt levels – over the next four years, he conceded holes in his figures.

Expected LNP government contributions to “smaller, more manageable” pumped hydro in that period would be worked out with the private sector and Queensland Hydro after the election.

(Departmental work justifying Pioneer-Burdekin found multiple smaller pumped hydro projects would likely be more disruptive and expensive.)

The pledge to finish the new direct passenger rail line between Beerwah and Maroochydore by 2032, beyond the Labor-promised halfway point of Caloundra, was backed by $40 million in extra planning across two years to mid-2028.

A recent business case for the 19-kilometre link to Caloundra alone estimated its cost at between $5.5 billion and $7 billion.

Crisafulli’s office was yet to respond to extra questions about whether such additional funding would come from debt or be found elsewhere.

Another perspective

Speaking at his own media conference shortly after Janetzki’s, Dick said it was “inherently unbelievable” that the state could save more than the Commonwealth had on external spending.

“[Federal Treasurer] Jim Chalmers saved $3 billion in his first year, and then $1 billion in the second budget. David Crisafulli says he wants to save $7 billion over four years,” he said.

Dick reiterated suggestions by Together union secretary Alex Scott that the LNP would claim after the election that the slated savings were not there.

He said they would then do “what they have always wanted to do – and what they do every time they get the government – and that is to cut”.

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