Queensland election: parties leave it late to reveal costs

Queensland voters will have less than 48 hours to decide whether the major parties’ election costings add up.

Queensland Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls.

Queensland voters will have less than 48 hours to decide whether the major parties’ election costings add up, with Labor and the Liberal National Party leaving it until today to release the numbers.

While this is in keeping with ­recent practice, it is sure to try the ­patience of an electorate already deeply disaffected with politics as usual. The introduction of a TV ­advertising blackout means neither side will be able to challenge the figures in attack ads.

Premier Annastacia Palasz­czuk and LNP leader Tim Nicholls have been measured with their spending promises, reflecting the state’s tough financial circumstances.

Where Queensland’s public ­finances were once the envy of the nation, the budget now runs a knife-edge operating surplus and state debt is on track to hit $81 billion by the end of the next parliamentary term, the equivalent of $16,000 owed by every resident of the state. Both sides also promise details today on how the debt will be tackled.

On the basis of what has been released so far in the campaign, Labor’s election costs are expected to top $4bn. The LNP has claimed its tally is between $2bn and $3bn.

Both sides are vying to cut household power bills.

Ms Palaszczuk has promised to redirect dividends paid by the energy utilities to fund a subsidy worth $50 a year to households, with a further rebate of up to $300 to buy energy-efficient appliances. Mr Nicholls has trumped this, ­offering to shave at least $160 a year off household power bills by dumping renewable energy subsidies and restructuring the energy sector.

One Nation, meanwhile, says it can reduce power bills by 20 per cent by quarantining $1.3bn in dividends that the utilities currently pay the government and has pledged to build a coal-fired power station in north Queensland.

The LNP’s headline tax policy is to lift the payroll tax threshold for business, at a cost of $100m in the opening four years.

Mr Nicholls also backs the construction of a coal-fired power plant in the north. Ms Palaszczuk has pledged nearly $400m to job-creating programs, including $155m to a back-to-work initiative to encourage firms to hire unemployed people.

Both the LNP and One Nation would spend heavily on building dams, while Labor is promising to tip $800m over four years into a trust to upgrade the Bruce Highway between Brisbane and Cairns. The LNP would duplicate the M1 freeway from the capital to the Gold Coast.

Mr Nicholls said today’s costings from the LNP would detail how state debt would be stabilised under the $81bn mark predicted for 2020-21.

Ms Palaszczuk on Tuesday committed Labor to coming up with a plan to pay down the state’s nation-leading debt, with the policy to be revealed by Treasurer Curtis Pitt today.

Ad­ditional reporting: Charlie Peel