Mediocre Queensland election campaign needs a policy reboot

Sixteen days from election day, the most substantial issue raised in the Queensland campaign so far has not come from Premier Steven Miles or his rival David Crisafulli. That issue, reported by Sarah Elks on Wednesday, is the colossal 75 per cent rise in the state’s public service wages bill across the nine years since Labor was elected in 2015. In failing to respond properly to the matter or to propose solutions to Queensland’s rising debt crisis, neither Mr Miles nor the Opposition Leader appear to have a keen interest in the importance of public finances.

Neither do they want to debate how the state’s rising debt should be tackled. Their reluctance to engage about a problem that is central to future living standards is an insult to the intelligence of voters. As a contributing factor to inflation, heavy state spending is adding to elevated interest rates, one of the main drivers of cost-of-living pressures. Both Mr Miles and Mr Crisafulli need to explain why they will not reintroduce the sound fiscal principle, axed by the ALP, of limiting public service growth to less than the rate of population growth.

Since Annastacia Palaszczuk was elected in January 2015, Queensland’s population has grown by about 850,000 people to 5.63 million. Crunching the numbers, Elks discovered that across that time the number of full-time equivalent public servants has increased by 57,000 – at about the rate of one new public servant for every 15 new residents.

The ballooning public sector wages bill is a significant factor driving Queensland’s rising debt, which will come under further pressure from unions in the coming round of enterprise bargaining. The dominance of public sector unions and the debt crisis reflect badly on the priorities and economic mismanagement of Labor under Mr Miles and Ms Palaszczuk. And in his reluctance to engage on the issue, Mr Crisafulli is doing Queenslanders and his own credibility no favours.

In steering clear of key economic issues, Mr Crisafulli has created a vacuum, leaving himself and his candidates more vulnerable by allowing the abortion debate, for example, to take centre stage. On Wednesday, for the third consecutive day, Mr Crisafulli was forced to dodge questions about how he could fulfil his guarantee of “no changes” to abortion laws if crossbenchers introduced legislation that some LNP MPs supported. On Tuesday, crossbencher Robbie Katter revealed his plans, if re-elected, immediately to introduce legislation to overhaul Queensland’s liberal abortion laws after the state election. The issue is divisive among both socially conservative LNP supporters and some MPs who expect the party’s longstanding practice of a conscience vote on matters of life and death to prevail.

The issue will not change the outcome of an election in which cost of living and crime have consistently rated as the key concerns of voters. But Mr Crisafulli would have been able to head it off had he demonstrated the leadership to maintain the discipline of elements of his partyroom to keep the focus on issues that are at the forefront of the minds of the majority of Queenslanders.

Economic hardheads, wisely, are also concerned that after his foolish promise to implement Labor’s 2024 budget across the forward estimates, before he saw it, Mr Crisafulli as premier would lack a mandate to embark on economic reform. Like the debt-ridden Queensland economy that needs more than populist giveaways from both sides, the lacklustre campaign, even at this late stage, needs a policy reboot.