Labor slams new LNP leader Tim Nicholls for public sector job cuts

Queensland’s Labor government has attacked Liberal National Party leader Tim Nicholls for cutting 14,000 public jobs.

New Queensland Liberal National Party Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls. Picture: Tara Croser.

Queensland’s minority Labor government has attacked new Liberal National Party leader Tim Nicholls for cutting 14,000 public sector jobs and spearheading a doomed privatisation package as Newman government treasurer.

Mr Nicholls, who ousted Lawrence Springborg as Opposition Leader on Friday in a tight partyroom vote, yesterday took his seat in the state’s hung parliament for the first time since the coup.

His successor as Treasurer, Labor’s Curtis Pitt, told parliament the LNP was now under “old management … asset sales remain the new Opposition Leader’s one-point plan for Queensland. His game plan is still the same: talk Queensland down, talk it down, and repeat. Then fire-sale Queenslanders’ assets out the door and out of their hands forever.”

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk took up the attack, boasting that 60,000 jobs had been created in Queensland since the Labor government came to power. She said 14,000 jobs were cut in Mr Nicholls’ first budget as treasurer, listing the number of jobs lost by region.

“What we saw with the job cuts that hurt Queenslanders so much was a slowing of those economies in regional Queensland,” she said.

The LNP focused its parliamentary attack on Labor’s links with the trade unions.

On Friday, Mr Nicholls said he accepted Queensland voters had rejected Strong Choices at the last election and it was not his intention to revive privatisation. However, The Australian revealed some of his colleagues were agitating for a less-drastic asset recycling program to pay down Queensland’s debt and pay for infrastructure. The LNP has been considering a plan to privatise part of state-owned Powerlink by selling half to the state’s pension fund held by the Queensland ­Investment Corporation.

Labor is investigating how to attract private investment in state-owned power businesses, but insists it will not sell assets.

Yesterday, Energy Minister Mark Bailey announced power sector figure Philip Garling would be his nominee for chairman of the organisation formed from the merger of state electricity companies Ergon and Energex.

The merged company will be based in Townsville.

A parliamentary committee investigating the move is due to report tomorrow.