Queensland election: Will David Crisafulli be up to the task if he is premier?

LNP leader David Crisafulli on the campaign trail on Thursday. Picture: Liam Kidston

Make no mistake, Queensland’s Labor government led by Steven Miles deserves to be voted out of office. It has been a bad government. Public sector employment has ballooned, government spending is essentially out of control, and its energy policy is a joke.

Miles’ desperate attempt to buy enough votes to stay in office is extremely lamentable. Thousand-dollar energy rebates, 50c public transport fares, “free” school lunches are just some of the items on a long list.

Let’s just hope the voting public isn’t easily duped. As for the government establishing and running service stations as well as a new energy retailer, let’s get real. These are both profoundly stupid ideas.

Labor’s handling of the crime wave that has befallen parts of Queensland has been pathetic. Lest voters in inner city seats abandon Labor for the Greens, Miles talks about youth crime being a complex issue. This is ­simply code for a government that is not really prepared to tackle the problem.

As for Labor’s energy policy, many school students could have done better. Legislating emission-reduction targets – it’s a cut of 75 per cent by 2035 – really makes no difference to the improbability of that figure being reached.

The Labor government even went to the trouble of setting up a new government entity, CleanCo, which has achieved precisely nothing in six years.

The two proposed pumped hydro projects are absurd: their topography is unsuitable, there has been no real progress, and their costs are massive and rising.

The real question is whether LNP Opposition Leader David Crisafulli will be a worthwhile premier. Will he tackle the key problems facing Queensland? Can he head Queensland in the direction of fiscal sustainability? Can he implement a rational energy policy suited to Queensland conditions? How will he manage to deal with the sizeable challenge of preparing for staging the Olympic Games in 2032?

(Miles and Crisafulli effectively agreed to a ceasefire during the election campaign on the Olympics. The issues are so intractable, and the sums of money are just vast, particularly for a two-week event.)

Let’s be clear about Crisafulli: he is not a bull-at-the-gate kind of guy. He prefers a measured, modest style to fulfil his role. Given that the LNP has been out of office for most of this century, he doesn’t want to blow it in one term. This is the interpretation put on Campbell Newman’s one term in office.

There are both pluses and ­minuses to this approach. But the big downside is that his administration will just end up a pale imitation of the Labor government that is being replaced. He needs to stand for something, and he needs to start repairing the finances of the state.

There have been some bad early signs. He has gone along with Miles on the 50c public transport fees, to be made permanent. This is bad policy and involves a massive subsidy for public transport users – public transport is only available in some parts of the highly regional state – at the expense of everyone else. The costs of public transport must be paid for, one way or another.

While flagging his intention to keep the government-owned coal-fired plants going for as long as they are needed – bear in mind here, they are relatively new although the large Callide power plant did blow up due to a lack of maintenance – he does support one of the pumped hydro projects (Borumba, near Gympie) going ahead. Hopefully, this decision can be reversed if he takes office.

Mr Crisafulli tours the Brisbane Markets. Picture: Liam Kidston

Crisafulli’s aversion to nuclear power is hard to explain save for his perception of some negative electoral appeal. Hopefully, again, he can see the light if he takes office. Ditto the state’s ban on uranium mining. This is quite bizarre and needs to be lifted.

The fiscal position of the state requires immediate attention. With government debt heading towards $190bn, it is probably only a matter of time before the state’s credit rating is downgraded, leading to higher net interest payments.

The fact is Queensland has been gifted with considerable resource wealth and royalties are an important source of government revenue. That Labor still could not even run a recurrent budget surplus tells us a lot of about the extent of overspending that is baked into the state budget.

Crisafulli will have no option but to deal with this problem, but he is clearly averse to any com­pulsory redundancies for public sector workers.

It’s easy to come to the conclusion that Crisafulli is not up to the task. Let’s hope he can surprise us should he become premier.