Annastacia Palaszczuk: despite broken promise, ‘you can still trust me’

Annastacia Palaszczuk insists she can still be trusted after her government broke an election promise to suspend tax increases.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Treasurer Cameron Dick during question time in Brisbane. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Annastacia Palaszczuk insists she can still be trusted after her government broke an election promise to suspend tax increases.

The Queensland Premier and Treasurer Cameron Dick repeatedly ruled out new or increased taxes ahead of the 2020 state election campaign, yet Tuesday’s budget increased taxes on coalmining companies and online bookmakers, and introduced a new levy on businesses with annual wages bills exceeding $10m

Asked on the campaign trail in Cairns whether the pledge extended to business, Mr Dick responded: “There will not be any increased taxes, we have said that very clearly from the start, no new taxes from the Labor government if we are re-elected.”

Delivering a bizarre defence of Mr Dick in Queensland parliament on Wednesday morning, Ms Palas­zczuk said the Treasurer never mentioned the word “business” in his response to the reporter’s question about business taxes.

“The Treasurer did not mention the word business,” she said.

“The people of Queensland can trust me. They can trust me, absolutely they can, and they do.”

Mr Dick continued the government’s denial of the broken election promise, telling parliament he never extended the tax suspension to businesses.

“We made a promise, it was an election campaign.

“I was speaking to the people of Queensland and they know the promise I made to them and we have absolutely delivered on it,” he said. “The reason we know that is because business campaigned against us every single day of the ­campaign.”

Opposition Treasury spokesman David Janetzki said Queenslanders could no longer trust Mr Dick.

“The Treasurer is attempting to rewrite history when he says he didn’t break his promise to Queenslanders of no new or increased taxes,” he said.

“It’s extraordinary for him to admit he was being deliberately misleading when he purposely didn’t answer the question in the election campaign.”

Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter agreed it was a broken promise. “The words speak for themselves,” he said.

“Businesses just apply a lot of their costs back on to the people so it is a funny sort of logic that the Treasurer uses.”

In his third budget as Treasurer, Mr Dick revealed Queensland had delivered a $1.9bn surplus – three years ahead of schedule – on the back of record coal and gas prices and Brisbane’s booming property market.

Ratings agencies S&P Global and Moody’s were both surprised by the state’s fiscal position, saying the revenue recovery has exceeded initial expectations.

The Palaszczuk government has been criticised for its lack of investment to fix the state’s housing crisis, after no new money was committed for social housing in the budget.

While $441.3m of the $1.9bn allocated to a housing and homelessness plan in 2021 will be spent this year, no new money was set aside in the most recent budget.

There are about 50,000 people on the social housing waiting list while the state’s rental vacancy is just 0.7 per cent.

Mr Dick will address an industry breakfast, hosted by the Queensland Council of Social Service, on Thursday morning.