State-owned petrol stations? The fumes have gone to Steven Miles’s head
Queensland taxpayers as well as service station owners and staff can only gasp at Premier Steven Miles’s election pledge to waste public money establishing a dozen government-owned and operated petrol stations and to impose price caps on fuel.
Mr Miles’s command-and-control mindset smacks of the policy thinking of 1915, when Labor set up and ran state-owned butcher shops. It wasn’t much chop then and this idea is sillier. It smacks of political immaturity and is a sign that a desperate Mr Miles is trying to save a bit of Labor furniture in the Queensland election on October 26, which the party is on track to lose. The Premier has admitted his promise was not backed by any modelling. Turning itself into a retailer, restricting petrol price rises and transforming servos into public servants are not the roles of government.
In the unlikely event the absurd policy got off the ground, market meddling in an industry with tight margins and prices shaped by events on the other side of the world would threaten small businesses and jobs. Fleecing households and businesses to pay for this and other inefficiencies such as cutting all public transport fares to 50c and taking over council buses would blow out the public credit card. Such follies would set the economy back when growth has never mattered more.